The Makings of a Good Man
by thebermuda
Summary: In which the villain shoots himself before the story starts and everyone else must fix the mess he made. Sherlock and a woman genius, Dr. Madder, travel the world to solve a threefold problem: a perfectly genuine computer code, a broken sniper, and Jim's psychopathic ally, Adelbert Gruner. Note: Gruner is from The Illustrious Client.
1. West Africa

He had memories of what it'd been like Before John.

The world: A constant stream of irrelevant information. Details inputted into his head and outputted as conclusions that didn't matter. An overload of external stimuli.

Too much. Vision sometimes shut down – a coping mechanism, to block out some of the excess information. When the blindness struck, he'd curl up on a London sidewalk for a time, or else grope for buildings to guide his way, if he was in a rush. Eventually he memorized every block and side street and gutter in the city, in case his sight should spontaneously disappear.

Before: Years of voices melding together and faces with features shrouded in shadow. Certain faces became familiar, over time, and easier to process. Lestrade is in a number of his memories. Not the Lestrade he knows not, but a more concerned, but less gray version of the D.I. In his memories, Lestrade's eyebrows are always furrowed, and he's always disappointed.

His brother is in those memories too, but never as a face. When he pictures Mycroft he sees a CCTV camera angled awkwardly toward him, or a lean silhouette following him in the night.

He used to take taxis because the tube had been too much. In the underground there'd be people, watching him. Or not watching him, and talking to each other. Endless chatter and the groaning of an electric train that ran twenty-four hours a day. He'd hired people to shop for him; the music or televisions in stores was overwhelming.

It is a damned good thing no one had ever sent him to a doctor. He'd been a dissociative curiosity; he watched the world outside himself, mostly – as much of the world as he could handle, that is. It was only when he was on a case that he jolted back into himself, found something tangible and manageable to focus on. Later, after John, people assumed that Sherlock sought adrenaline highs as much as John did. He didn't, not really. Cases made the world less overwhelming. Like cocaine, they gave him one problem to focus on, for a time, instead of myriad problems out of his control, and not even solvable.

He imagines that one day, if he hadn't discovered detective work and John, his brain would have become inflamed. It would have cracked his skull, and his skull would've pierced a seam down his head, and Sherlock's thoughts would have exploded into the universe.

* * *

It'd been scary, Before: he used to end up places and have no idea how he got there. When external stimuli became too much, his mind shut down, and memory formation became impossible. He'd call his brother during those times. Mycroft always knew where he was, would always send someone to pick him up. After, John was with him, almost always, guiding him. That was enough.

Sherlock made a promise to himself when he was on the rooftop of Bart's: He wasn't going to lose himself again. He would not forget hours, or days, of his life. He would focus, focus, focus on crushing Moriarty's web, and once he came back John would be there to anchor him. He promised himself.

* * *

Sherlock breaks that promise. He gets on a plane. Goes somewhere, somewhere important, somewhere Moriarty's web is involved.

The plane ride: Too much. Dozens of vents, pushing out dry, cool air onto the sleeping faces of passengers. Too much breathing, too much thinking, too many laptops droning and iPods playing softly. Too much turbulence. Too many times the flight attendants had to tell him to stop pacing up and down the aisles, to sit down. He accuses two of them, loudly, of sleeping with the pilot, and they look at each other like their worst suspicions of one another have been confirmed. They forget he's there, so he takes his seat, and he imagines he didn't shout out his deduction. He imagines he whispered it, softly, in the ear of the dozing passenger beside him (Not the fat man who tried leaning against Sherlock's shoulder, obviously – John. He's _imagining._). John would have giggled, and Sherlock would have felt the immense relief he always feels when John makes Sherlock's more useless deductions into something (sentimentally) valuable. But John isn't here. Nothing to do with the information. Can't stop it from flowing in, though; can't stop his brain from analyzing everything. Too much. Too much. Overload.

He needs to find another skull, if he can't have John.

* * *

Shit.

He isn't in the plane anymore. He is standing in an airport, feet away from a pair of doors that lead to a city. Shit. Shit. He's here. But _where?_ He racks his brain; where had Mycroft sent him first? Impossible to reach information when the brain is too busy struggling to process minute details, like the sound of dust drifting in the air. Everything hurts.

He dials Mycroft.

"Brother, dear. Was your death successful?"

"Where am I?" Sherlock says. He closes his eyes; sunlight is pouring in through the glass doors. Too much.

"Sudan," says Mycroft. "Shall I send someone to help you?" Mycroft's minions are lurking, of course; here to kill the bad guys once Sherlock figures out who the bad guys are.

"No. That'd ruin everything, you know that." He can feel Mycroft purse his lips on the other end.

"They're there if you need saving," Mycroft says. And hangs up.

* * *

Everything passes in a whirl. The heat, the dehydration, the water, the diarrhea. The wish that John were here, treating him, even though Sherlock would be embarrassed and moody if he were, and even though Mycroft's minions have every medication he needs. It bothers him, that he's in less danger than he thought he would be. It makes him less a martyr. Makes it seem like he left John for nothing.

It's not like a case; there is no definite goal, no definite number of criminals that Sherlock needs to name. There are no crime scenes, only suspected individuals and hints from Mycroft. Only following people, trying to remain discreet despite having the lightest skin for miles. He works restlessly for four weeks, and the chase becomes his obsession. As soon as he's given Mycroft enough information to go on, Sherlock collapses.

His body gives out when he returns to his hotel room. He'd been hungry and thirsty since arriving; hardly any of the food or water available seems trustworthy. He'd been jittery from an overdose of street coffee, but now that's worn out. His heart and head are pounding and he's drenched in perspiration. He groans and closes his eyes.

None of Mycroft's assistants check on him until the next morning. They find him curled up on the hardwood floor, in a puddle of sweat and urine and vomit.

They think he has malaria. He needs serious medical assistance, but none is available in the country. He hears them talking about it to each other; rough, male voices shouting, debating their next move. Everyone too scared to call Mycroft and tell him that his younger brother's dying. They can't cross the border with him; every man is needed to target Moriarty's men. They can't decide which is more of a danger to Sherlock: Moriarty's men, or malaria.

End up sending Sherlock on his way in a stretcher, with an interpreter. Sherlock's passed out for the plane ride. He'll be safe, though, Mycroft's men decide; three American doctors wait for him in Ethiopia.

* * *

He wakes up in a tent. He's sore down to his marrow; his body so exhausted from ceaseless shivering that now he can barely move. It's sweltering but there's a cool rag on his forehead and he's lying naked and bald. Perhaps this should bother him, but he's never been one for modesty and he's mostly just pleased his caretakers have taken reasonable precautions against the heat.

"Ah, you're awake." A white, brown-haired man, tall and muscular, slips through the tent. He's wearing a three piece suit despite the heat, and a ridiculous sunhat is balanced on top of his head. He hovers over Sherlock and seems to care even less about Sherlock's nudity than Sherlock does.

"Where am I?" Sherlock rasps.

"A village some miles north of Addis Ababa," the man says. "And congratulations! As it turns out, you don't have malaria. You're just weak as hell and used to clean water." The man holds up his hand, grinning, and waits for Sherlock. Sherlock stares back dully. The man's grin slips away. "Too soon for a high-five?"

Sherlock can't place the man's accent. It might be American, but his consonants are too rhythmic and clipped.

"Right. Well, if you can stand, I can help you get dressed. We'll need to leave very soon."

Sherlock's memories come back to him, at least enough of them to make sense of why he is naked and bald in a tent in Africa: the rooftop, his phone call with John, the fall, the plane ride, Sudan, his collapse…

Sudan had been first on his list. Check. Ethiopia wasn't on his list at all. So this man – one of Mycroft's men, obviously – is asking him to go to the country next on the list. Which is… Right.

"Somalia," Sherlock says faintly. The man chuckles.

"I think we need to get _you_ out of Africa. Only first world countries for you, Mr. Holmes. And now up you get," the man says, grunting as he squats by Sherlock's side and pushes Sherlock up by his shoulders. Sherlock manages to stay there, long enough for the man to pull Sherlock's arms through the sleeves of a loose cotton T-shirt.

* * *

"You're not one of Mycroft's men." Sherlock figures it out as the man is helping Sherlock put on shorts. Under normal circumstances, he would have known this immediately, but his brain feels slow and groggy at the moment. It's a new sensation.

"No, I don't work for governments," says the man. "But you obviously need me, seeing as how Mycroft's men had you leave Sudan with only an interpreter, and that interpreter was detained at the border."

"You got me past the border," Sherlock says.

"Yes," the man says, as Sherlock fumbles to secure the shorts around his hipbones. His fingers trace across hard bone. He's lost a lot of weight in just four weeks; he wonders if John would find him pathetic, getting ill twice in less than a full month after his "death." He wonders if John thinks of him at all.

No. Stupid. He must.

John needs Sherlock. Sherlock doesn't need John. Sherlock had forgotten that.

"Come on, look brighter. If you look sick they won't let you on the plane," the man says, giving Sherlock's arm a punch. Sherlock feels woozy; falls back.

"I shouldn't go with you," he says.

"Probably not, but you will," says the man.

"Why would I?" he snaps.

"Because you're sick and alone and you don't do 'alone.' I can tell. You need me." The man stands. "I'll be waiting outside. We should be out of this village by sunset."

Sherlock manages to stand on his own, shaking and weak. When he walks out he finds four men sitting on the ground. Three are obviously the American doctors; Sherlock wonders if he should be thanking them, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. The fourth is the man that helped dress Sherlock; he's laughing and smiling boisterously. There's a group of small, dark-skinned children around him, and they're all shouting the same word. It takes a moment for Sherlock to comprehend it as, "Papa!" The man is hugging them like he really is their papa, and every now and then he gives one a kiss on the head.

Handmade bowls are on the dirt ground, Sherlock notices; the three by the doctors have been scraped empty.

"Mr. Holmes, good to see you standing," the man says. He reaches past the children, and pushes one of the filled bowls forward. "Dinner's waiting."

Sherlock drops to the ground. He looks distastefully at the bowl, which is full of cold lentils.

"I'm not hungry," he says flatly. The children all quiet and stare. The man gives him a pleasant smile, but his eyes are hard and unyielding.

"You're never 'not hungry' in Ethiopia, Mr. Holmes. Eat the food. _Now."_ Sherlock and the man stare at each other for several long seconds. The doctors are frowning. Sherlock feels like a fool, and he's wondering if maybe staring this man down will win him back his pride. It doesn't. He takes the bowl.

The man nods and goes back to playing with the children.

"Who wants one last piggy back ride?" he asks, laughing merrily, and all the children jump up and raise their hands. It's a happy sight, almost. Sherlock almost smiles, the taste of lentils dull and dry in his mouth.


	2. Dr Madder

The American doctors take Sherlock's vitals one last time, and collectively approve his leaving. They hand him and the man bottles of water before they leave, and some of the children cry and sulk, "Papa…" Sherlock and the man go to the airport in a provided car.

* * *

They sit beside each other. A dark-skinned Ethiopian is driving them down a dirt road in his Jeep. The Jeep's wheels dispel the road's dust into mushroom clouds, so that they're like an oversized, traveling mote. If the windows were open they'd all be choking to death.

The man is looking out the window, and some part of Sherlock wants the man to be looking at him. That's usually how it is, after all. People look at him. But he's dead now, so that might explain the change.

Mostly out of habit, Sherlock takes note of the thick build of the man. He's bulky, but a bit soft, like maybe layers of muscle have recently been obscured by a layer of fat. So: He exercises, but his diet isn't healthy. That, combined with the way he talks with his hands and the alacrity in his voice when he speaks...

He's an Italian. English is his second language – that explains his clipped, rhythmic way of speaking. He spent a significant time in America, was likely even raised there, but his parents are from Italy. He grew up around them, absorbed their habits, spent nights around the TV watching the Italian news and slurping down meatballs.

His suit indicates wealth, and his ample stature indicates a generous appetite, but he has an obvious awareness of poverty that says he's not classist. He seems familiar with Africa. He doesn't have a newcomer's fear of being carjacked, but looks out the window like he's aware that carjacking is a definite possibility.

So: Italian, grew up in the United States – likely the northeast, going by his accent – and worked his way to his current level of wealth. Might be a stretch, but possibly became wealthy so that he could raise a clan of Ethiopian orphans. Noble.

And he saved Sherlock's life. Sherlock barely knew him, but he saved Sherlock's life. That reminds Sherlock of another noble man he knows, but he tries to push the thought out of his head. Not wise to trust a strange man just because he resembles John. Even if that man did bring a sick Sherlock across the Sudanese border.

"You're Italian," Sherlock begins. The man turns and raises his eyebrows.

"What makes you think that?"

Sherlock flutters his own hands. "Animated body language. And your accent says your grew up in America, the northeast specifically, probably New York, but your parents…"

He goes through his deductions, adding more as he thinks of them: "Your shoes were shined recently, but not well. Going from the direction of the waxy smears leftover on them, you shined them yourself, while wearing them. You'd feel pretentious hiring someone to shine your shoes, but you care a lot about your appearance. So," he concludes, "an entrepreneur with a good heart, who's had to make his way to the top by speaking well and looking good."

There is a pause. Then the man laughs.

And that's as much praise as he offers. His bewilderment? Nonexistent. Sherlock frowns.

"I'm unable to deduce your name, though," Sherlock says after a few minutes, "and I ought to know it, yes?"

Now the man turns back to Sherlock. He's grinning the silly, crooked grin of a warmhearted rags-to-riches Italian finance guy. The grin seems to say that the man has a secret, but one that, if you asked, he'd tell you.

"Dr. Madder," the man says. Then adds, "But it's not an M.D."

"Finance," Sherlock says. "Or business."

The man's eyes twinkle. "Oh, you're good."

Sherlock extends his hand for a handshake. "I am, aren't I?"

* * *

Hours have passed. Sherlock is looking out a window, but he's not really looking. He's thinking.

His father died.

When he was fourteen.

John knows that.

Dying: The end to consciousness. Electrical activity of the brain ceases. Cardiac arrest without hope of the heart restarting. Eventually, algor mortis: the reduced temperature of a corpse. Used in the Glaister equation, to approximate the time that has spanned between an individual's Life and his Death. Sherlock hasn't had to use that in a while; John's good for that stuff.

(There really is a reason why he needs an assistant.)

John's a doctor. He may not be brilliant, but he knows things. Even things Sherlock doesn't know. He knows about the stages of death, the rigor mortis. He's felt the stiffness of corpses in Afghanistan, held the cold, dead hands of soldiers he failed to heal.

It's been weeks; if Sherlock _were_ dead, he'd be gruesomely decomposed by now. And John is a doctor with a history of nightmares and PTSD. Sherlock can't be positive - he never is, with this stuff - but seeing a corpse might be triggering. Dead bodies are commonplace for him, and also for John, but he's been told that it's different when you know the person. So: John's having nightmares. His subconscious is conjuring up medically-accurate visions of his dead best friend.

Sherlock's echoic memory summons the past sounds of John after he first moved into 221B. He would fall asleep in his bedroom upstairs and Sherlock would stand by his door in the middle of the night. He'd listen to his new flatmate because that was what Sherlock did with things that were strange and novel to him.

John used to cry. A routine man: Every morning, between 4:10 and 4:30 AM. Corresponded with his sleep cycles – he'd be in REM and Sherlock would be on the other side of his door, with his ear pressed against the wood, and he'd be picturing John's eyes rolling in their sockets, eyelids flickering, and then John would cry out. He'd sob, but never for long (a fighter, always), and then Sherlock would hear his deep breathing go on for minutes. A coping mechanism they taught him in the war. Deep breaths. Calm down. Just a nightmare, John.

Too much. Too much. (Emotional) Overload.

Sherlock snaps back.

Oh.

He's on a plane.

Dr. Madder is sitting next to him, and for some reason he's leaning toward Sherlock, so that his ridiculous sunhat is almost poking Sherlock in the eye.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Madder asks.

"What do you mean – " Sherlock looks down. He has his phone in his hand, and he's very nearly sent a text to John's number.

_I'm not decomposing. – SH_

Dr. Madder grabs the phone, and Sherlock reacts. He throws his arm across the other man's chest and slams him against his seat. Dr. Madder grunts, and Sherlock twists his wrist. The man releases the phone just as the other passengers begin to stare.

Sherlock presses 'send.'

Dr. Madder blinks at him.

"That was profoundly stupid," he says. "Mr. Holmes, that was _profoundly_ stupid. Do you realize how – "

But Sherlock isn't listening, because he's already gotten a text back. He flips his phone open (it's a new phone, one from Mycroft, one that apparently can't be traced, or tapped, or infiltrated in any way).

_We're sorry, but the number you have texted cannot be reached._

Automated text from the phone company. And then, not a second later, another text:

_Don't be so predictable. –MH_

Sherlock growls, and stuffs his phone back into his pocket. Damn Mycroft! And damn himself, and his own bloody emotions. Must he divorce himself from feelings anew? Tedious. He has work to do. Can't be distracted.

Then he realizes: Mycroft still thinks he's in Sudan. There's a reason why Mycroft doesn't trust his own workers – they're all selfish. None of them would have owned up to sending their boss's little brother across the border with only an interpreter. His location is his secret. His and Dr. Madder's.

Sherlock Holmes has not been free of his brother since he was born. He has always been tracked, traced, followed, watched. His brother was made a snoop, and Sherlock was his first victim. There wasn't a thing Sherlock could do as a child that Mycroft wouldn't report to Mummy.

And now he's free. This could be very interesting.

"You don't need him anyway," Dr. Madder says, as if he's read Sherlock's thoughts. Sherlock frowns and looks at the man.

"Don't I?"

"No," says Dr. Madder, and he turns away, pulling his hat over his eyes so that it rests at a jaunty angle, and obscures the top portion of his face in shadow. "You have me."

* * *

They exit the Haneda Airport and wait at what Dr. Madder calls a "taxi stand." They're surrounded by Tokyo businessmen and South Korean tourists, but Dr. Madder yells, "TAKUSHI ONEGAISHIMASU!" so loudly that Sherlock and him get the first cab that drives by.

"Arigatou," Dr. Madder says to the cab driver, getting in before Sherlock. Sherlock lets him; Dr. Madder is the one who knows where they're going. While getting into the cab, Sherlock cranks his memory for all the Japanese he knows, but not much comes to him besides the words for_murder_ and _robbery_ and _double homicide._ And, of course, _shut up._

"Ni Sakae-mura, onegaishimasu."

The cab driver pauses. "Sore wa san-jikan no kyori desu."

"Sou desu," responds Dr. Madder. He turns to Sherlock. "The ride's three hours."

"To Sakae-mura…" Sherlock's memory is jogged. "A village in Nagano prefecture."

Dr. Madder smiles and leans back, like he's ready to take a nap. The straw brim of his hat is becoming bent and frayed, as it's been pressed for hours against the seat of a plane.

Strange, Sherlock thinks. Usually he can deduce what foreign languages someone knows. He hadn't spotted that Dr. Madder knew Japanese. He opens his mouth to say something, but Dr. Madder interrupts.

"We'll need to wear disguises, obviously. Can't have a dead man walking, and it's best if no one recognizes me. Don't worry, though," Dr. Madder says reassuringly, as if Sherlock understood enough of what was going on to _be_ worried, "I've already got a good disguise prepared. At home in Sakae-mura. It's waiting for us."

"You've been expecting me," Sherlock says.

"No," says Dr. Madder. "The disguise _is_ best for two people, a male and a female, but it was made for another man. Not you. You'll do, though. Certainly."

Sherlock clenches his fists. When he was a child, first discovering the Science of Deduction, he used to phrase his deductions as questions. Because in the beginning, he was often wrong. As his accuracy increased, so did his amount of _stated_ observations. But Dr. Madder makes him feel like he should go back to questions.

Because the discrepancies are compiling.

"Your accent," Sherlock says. "It's clipped, rhythmic. Not Italian – Japanese. And you just said…"

No. No. It couldn't be.

"Repeat the last thing you said, exactly as you said it," Sherlock commands.

"No. That disguise _is_ best for two people, a male and a female," says Dr. Madder, his vocal expressions eerily similar to the last time he spoke, "but it was made for another man. Not you. You'll do, though. Certainly."

"A male and a female," Sherlock says. No. No. Impossible.

Dr. Madder's lips perk up. It's the face adults wear when children have said something stupid, and subsequently funny, but adults don't want to be condescending. And so they try to hide their smiles. And it never works.

No one has ever worn that face due to Sherlock before.

"Mr. Holmes, I'm so sorry. You didn't… You didn't really think…" Dr. Madder's eyes widen like she's seeing something in Sherlock's face, something the detective doesn't want to reveal. "Oh dear. You did. You actually thought – oh. Wow. I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes. I hadn't meant to mislead you. I read your website. The Science of Deduction. Very clever. I thought… I didn't think I could fool you. Your deductions back in Ethiopia – about the nonexistent Italian man. I thought you were kidding. Oh dear. Oh dear." But the longer she talks, the more pleased she looks with herself, and the more soprano her previously-baritone voice becomes. She adds, "I really do underestimate myself, don't I?"

The longer she talks, the angrier Sherlock gets. He snatches off her stupid hat.

Long hair comes cascading down. Long, brown hair that hasn't been washed in a while, framing a face that…

Sherlock groans. Makeup. The damn woman's wearing makeup, making her angles look wider, sharper, more masculine. And -

He reaches across her suit. It's not fat she has, it's actual padding. He pats roughly, to make sure – yes. Definite breasts.

"Mr. Holmes – "

"Sawarenai!" cries the cab driver and his tone, regardless of his precise meaning, is clear enough for Sherlock to drop his hands.

"If it helps," the woman says apologetically, "my name really is Dr. Madder. Anabelle Madder. The degree's in mathematics, but I've got a few others too."

Sherlock looks at her, really looks for the first time. He remembers when he tried to deduce Irene Adler, naked and staring defiantly back at him. His deductions had been:

? ? ? ?

They are the same now. He had myriad deductions about a man that never existed, but he couldn't even tell what _languages_ this woman knows. And that should be elementary.

Irene Adler had been all mischief. She'd shown off her cleverness with every bat of her eyelids, pacing like a panther ready to pounce. This –_woman_– though, this Dr. Madder, doesn't look like a show-off. She's not of Adler and Holmes's breed. She didn't mean to trick him. She'd fooled Sherlock Holmes by accident.

In other words: She's something new.


	3. Sakae-mura

After the painfully long plane ride to Haneda Airport, the three hour drive out of Tokyo proves too much for Sherlock's weary bones. By the time he and Dr. Madder reach her house in Sakae-mura, he only just makes it inside and heeds her request that he slip off his shoes, before collapsing against a wall.

He should be worried about the dryness of his throat, or the ceaseless gurgling of his stomach. He should figure out whether the heat emitting from his skin is due to sunburn, or fever, or both. But instead his delirious brain contemplates one thing: The ride from Tokyo to Sakae-mura was very different from his ride from Khartoum to Al Qadarif in Sudan. His thoughts are muddled, like floating, intangible wisps, and it's nearly impossible to grab onto one securely, so as to decide what made the separate rides so different.

His head is lolling against the cold wall of Dr. Madder's foyer, and the doctor is grasping him by the shoulders. She hoists him up and forces open his jaw. He can't see anything through his flickering eyelids, but he feels cold water gurgle down his throat. He swallows gratefully, coughing when the doctor pours too much too quickly. Once he's emptied an entire glass, he figures it out.

"I remember our cab ride," he slurs.

"Mm? That's good. Very good, Mr. Holmes. Come on, now. You need a cold bath." Dr. Madder begins dragging him with much effort, not understanding the significance of what he's said.

The cab ride in Sudan: He can't remember it. It happened, obviously, but it's all a dissociative blur, much like life Before John.

The cab ride in Japan: He remembers every dreary, monotonous detail of it.

There are so many differing factors between the two. A difference in temperature, location, distance driven, etc. But one factor stands out as the most prominent, and he suspects that this factor in particular may be the cause of his lucidity.

Dr. Madder rode with him in Japan.

"_Interesting,"_ he murmurs to himself, while the woman grunts and drags his arms down her hallway. Thinking that he may have found his new skull, if not his new John, Sherlock takes a deep breath and allows the world to go dark.

* * *

Sherlock awakens in the middle of a living room. He's on a comforter, which has been laid out neatly on a clean, hardwood floor, and after a moment he becomes aware of the fact that he is, once again, stark naked. There's a glass of cool water and a mug of steaming green tea to his right. The tea is hot, meaning that whoever put it there (Dr. Madder, he remembers) left the room less than five minutes ago. And is likely coming back.

He sits up, manages to cover his offending areas with the comforter beneath him, and inhales. The air is clean, filtered. The room has a sterile feel to it, distinctly different from the scented, familiar air of 221B, and Sherlock finds it unpleasant. He's surrounded by tall bookshelves, unadorned and built obviously by hand. They've got a decent layer of dust on them, contradicting the sterile air – whoever lives here (Dr. Madder) has been away for a considerable length of time. From his low line of vision on the floor he sees that the bottom shelves, at least, are supplied with books in English, Japanese, and Arabic.

He sees no book titles in German, Latin, Ancient Greek, etc. Languages are important. Dr. Madder, presuming these books are hers (which they may not be), has chosen to embrace the picturesque characters of Japanese, the flourishes of Arabic. She's disregarded the hard, precise logic and steely grammar that other languages could offer. That says something about her.

Blindly, he reaches out to a random book, one that happens to be in Arabic. Although he can't read it, he sees enough diagrams and charts to know the book is nonfiction, discussing something which requires the use of calculus. He places the tome back on the bookshelf, and opens five more. They're all specialized, arcane books, most involving mathematics.

Someone who chooses languages for their aesthetic value, but uses those languages to acquire concrete knowledge.

So: Dr. Madder. A walking contradiction.

That's hardly surprising, is it?

The walking contradiction walks into the room. Sherlock looks up, and sees her smiling.

"I thought you'd be waking soon," she says.

Going from how much the sunburn on his arms has faded, he estimates that he slept for about twelve hours. Sometime during those twelve hours, Dr. Madder abandoned her Italian-finance-guy disguise in order to adopt what Sherlock assumes is her typical attire. The clothes are at least a year old – probably from the last time she was in America. Can't find clothes for a female so tall in Japan. She's wearing jeans that are faded at the knees, brown boots, a tucked in collared shirt, and a brown leather belt. The outfit, somehow, manages to look more formal than it ought on her, like she's wearing a suit instead of jeans. Her long brown hair, now freed from that ridiculous sunhat, has been brushed carelessly behind her shoulders. Her features are average, at best – nothing too fascinating. Brown eyes. Heart-shaped face. Sharp eyebrows. Sherlock's lost the ability to judge attractiveness subjectively, so he relies on his research into what makes someone objectively attractive according to society's contemporary standards. He's gotten quite good at looking at people this way. Dr. Madder's breasts, for example, are too small. Her upper body muscles would be considered attractive on a male, but for a female they're too apparent. Her nose is too long for her face.

It's her clothes that interest him, though. They're very classic American. She's an expatriate, maybe. But somehow still a nationalist?

A walking contradiction.

She's carrying a bundle of clothes. She tells him to put them on, says she thinks they'll fit. They're men's clothing, but can't be for one of her disguises – they _do_ fit him, and would be too large for her. She treats them delicately when she hands them to him, allowing him to deduce that she possesses sentiment for the owner of the clothes. A boyfriend, likely.

"I'd dress you again, but I don't think you need me to," she says.

"I can do quite well on my own, thank you," he says curtly, and she leaves the room while he changes.

* * *

"You're a translator," he tells her the next morning. He's wearing a second outfit provided by the unidentified male: Jeans and a polo shirt. It doesn't suit him, but neither does being bald. The clothes feel too rough and too loose, and without his curls he looks positively cadaverous. He was too sick in Ethiopia to care about his lack of hair, but now his vanity has caught up with him: He regarded himself in Dr. Madder's bathroom mirror that morning and found that, without the contrast of dark hair against pale eyes, his eyes look drained, almost soulless. His skin is an unflattering red, rather than tan, and his cheekbones are prominent and exposed. If Dr. Madder has noticed his hideousness (which of course she has – people always notice others' looks, if little else), she's made no comment.

"Am I?" she asks him, grinning. They're sitting across from each other at a table in her kitchen, their knees balanced on separate tatami mats. Dr. Madder's offered him a bowl of steamed white rice, raw tofu with a plate of soy sauce, and a grilled slice of salmon. He eats it all with no regard for taste.

"Are you?" he asks, suddenly unsure.

She shrugs.

Infuriating.

He wants to _know._

* * *

He does nothing for four days.

Correction: He sleeps and eats and drinks a lot of water. By the second day, he begins teaching himself Japanese from some of Dr. Madder's books, because he's bored and it could prove useful, considering his current location. He starts exercising again, to reacquire the bulk he'd built up since meeting John. He does pushups and crunches the way John once showed him to. His arms look like sticks and the individual bones of his ribcage are visibly outlined by his skin. It's just like his uni days.

It is on his fifth day in Japan that he realizes something is wrong. It dawns on him in the evening, when he's in the bath and brainstorming his next move. He jumps – soaking Dr. Madder's tiled floor in the process – at the prospect of an argument.

"What the bloody hell," he declares, marching from the bathroom to the living room, naked and dripping wet (for effect, of course), "have you done with my phone?"

So calmly it enrages him, Dr. Madder raises her eyes from her book _(Chronometry in 16th Century China)_, does not move from her spot on the floor, and says, "Honestly, Mr. Holmes. I traveled with my brother for ten years and never saw him naked as often as I have seen you in the nude in the last week. There are enough towels in the bathroom to assist you, I assure."

"Where is my phone?" he growls, chin narrowed. She quirks up an eyebrow, reaches into her pocket, and tosses him his phone. He flips it open, getting water on its screen.

A moment later he says, "My brother's been looking for me."

This is an understatement. There have been 105 calls and 57 texts in the last several days. A sample of the latter reads:

_(6:18 P.M.) Tell me where you are._

_(6:25 P.M.) Enough of this. Call me right now._

_(6:27 P.M.) I knew you would do something like this._

_(6:31 P.M.) You are ridiculous._

_(6:34 P.M.) I'm furious with you._

_(6:34 P.M.) Are you okay?_

_(6:47 P.M.) Call me._

"He nearly found you, too," Dr. Madder says. "We were caught on a CCTV camera in Tokyo, but there aren't any CCTV cameras in a place as small as Sakae-mura. This place is my safe house."

And sure enough, Sherlock finds:

_(10:28 A.M.) I know you were in Tokyo at 10:20 A.M. JST. Where have you gone?_

"I should call him right now," Sherlock says.

"You could." Dr. Madder shrugs. "Or you could wait."

"Why would I?" he snaps.

"Because you're the genius detective who faked his own suicide, Mr. Holmes. You did it to save your friends, and I'm assuming you'd like to return to those friends as quickly as possible." Sherlock does not deny this. "Mycroft offers you a way to crush Moriarty's web, but I am offering you a faster way."

"Really? Is that what you're doing? Because it looks to me like you're reading a book," says Sherlock through gritted teeth. He begins to dial Mycroft's number.

"I need your help, Mr. Holmes, so I'd appreciate it if you put the phone down." Dr. Madder sighs.

"I thought _you_ wanted to help _me,"_ he says.

"Can we not help each other?"

Dr. Madder and Sherlock exchange a long, hard stare. It ends with Sherlock slowly setting his phone on a nearby bookcase. He returns to the bathroom for a towel.

* * *

During breakfast the next day (steamed rice, umeboshi, miso soup), Dr. Madder abruptly rises and declares, "I'm going for a walk."

Sherlock feigns disinterest. "Enjoy yourself," he says. She bows to him (she's spent a lot of time in Japan, obviously) and leaves the room. He waits until he hears the front door open and close before he stands.

He rushes to slip on his shoes in the foyer, and cracks open the front door. He peers outside, at Dr. Madder's front porch, and finds Dr. Madder walking down the pavement. He glances around him: The front yard is full of potted, bright flowers and verdure, grown unruly after the long absence of the house's owner. Across the street is a parked taxi. The taxi driver is dozing, not exactly looking for customers. An idea sparks in Sherlock's head.

He dashes across the street, keeping low, and finds that the driver's window of the cab is – luckily – open.

With a rough blow against the sleeping man's head from Sherlock's blunt fist, the man falls sure and heavy against the steering wheel. He's unconscious, but not for long. Sherlock reaches his arm in the car, unlocks it, and opens the door. He brings the man's body out onto the pavement. He hops in the front seat and starts the cab, slouching low.

Sherlock Holmes has a great weakness when it comes to cabbies. Never bothers to see who they are. That weakness has been exploited – twice. He's hoping Dr. Madder will make a similar mistake.

He drives around the block and pulls up to the corner of the street just as Dr. Madder reaches it. Sherlock readjusts the rearview mirror so that the front of his face isn't reflected in its glass.

Dr. Madder opens the door.

"San-ni-ichi-hachi-roku Ishizuecho-dori, chuo-ku, onegaishimasu," she says.

He had been hoping to plug in the address in the GPS beside him, but both Dr. Madder and the GPS's Japanese make this impossible.

"Ni Niigata," she adds from the backseat. As far as he can tell, she's paying no attention to who's driving her. That, at least, is going as planned.

Niigata. He recognizes that – the city that borders Sakae-mura. Capital of Nagano prefecture.

Okay. He can drive to Niigata.


	4. Sasaki Facilities

In Niigata, he steers the stolen cab aimlessly, wondering how long it will take for the Japanese cabbie to wake up and alert the police, and how long it will take the police to find the cab. He estimates at least an hour. Should be ample.

Of course, he has no idea where he's going. Maybe he will park the cab somewhere in the city and _run_, concealing his face in the process. Dr. Madder would be very baffled by such a fickle cabbie indeed, but she'd likely proceed to her destination regardless. He'd find his way to her again, and resume his spying. His plan is absurd, and he thinks that, if John were with him, John would be laughing.

Then something miraculous happens.

"O.K. desu. Ii desu," Dr. Madder says. Her words take on the universal tone of anyone who's ever said, _"Okay, this is fine. Leave me off here,"_ to a cabbie. Slightly stunned, he parks up to the pavement. Dr. Madder hands him some yen, still not looking at him, and she gets out. She enters a multistoried, steel-colored building. It has a Romanized sign on it: **Sasaki Facilities.**

Sherlock parks the cab and walks in after Dr. Madder, swinging open glass doors.

He finds himself staring at a great expanse of grey wall that stretches in two directions. The wall is bare, excluding a single exception: Directly in front of him is a framed photograph of an older Japanese man. He has wrinkles around his eyes, graying black hair, and the smile of someone who's moderately intelligent. A golden plaque beneath the frame reads, "Souta Sasaki, Ph.D." Sherlock takes note of it in virtually no time and returns to his task. Dr. Madder has already vanished. He cannot hear her footsteps echoing from down the hall, and there's no indication of what direction she might have chosen.

Chance…chance… Left or right? Right or left? John would choose left, wouldn't he? Because he's left-handed? Sherlock likes to leave the chance bits of their adventures up to John. He turns left.

He rushes down the hall. It's lined with doors, but they're all locked. None of the rooms are labeled. It's spooky; no official building would have a layout like this. Something's not right.

There are no elevators, at least none that he can find. He discovers stairs that lead to floors that contain winding, nonsensical halls, most of which lead to more locked doors, but some of which lead nowhere at all. They seem to have been built to strategically confuse an intruder. The building is eerily silent, making Sherlock feel very much alone. The sound of his rustling jeans bounces off the walls, the echoes tenfold as loud as the initial noise.

On the fourth floor, Sherlock finds a second occupant.

It's not Dr. Madder.

Down the hall, a woman is running. She's holding a gun with one hand like it's an extension of her arm, and her body moves with the hard, unwavering focus that indicates a chase. She's dashing after someone, someone who likely vanished around the corner moments before Sherlock stepped onto the fourth floor.

The woman stops. Her body lurches to a sudden halt, and her head snaps back in Sherlock's direction, as if she detected him with predatory hearing. She has dark eyes and frenzied features that scream of a lust for violence.

Sherlock runs.

He dashes down the hall, toward the door that leads to the stairs. He races up to the fifth floor, hearing pounding boots behind him. Uselessly his brain conjures the image of John and his gun, 5800 miles away.

He dashes down the fifth floor hallway and scrambles to the nearest door. A gun goes off behind him, making him duck as he twists a doorknob. It's locked. He keeps running. The woman is getting closer.

The seventh door to the right is open – he bursts through the doorway and slams the door. He fumbles with the lock, breathing hard. The woman is inches away, blocked by a steel frame.

Her gun goes off – she's shooting the hinges off the door. Sherlock looks around, frantic. There are no other doors to run through, no way out. There are no closets to hide in, no tables to crawl beneath. He is surrounded by four walls of computers.

He faked his own death, only to die five weeks later. Really, Sherlock Holmes?

"Is this the best you could do?" he asks himself, suddenly furious. The gun goes off again, and a bullet finds the last hinge holding up the door. The woman kicks out, her foot clashing against the steel. The door crashes with a tremendous clang, making Sherlock's ears ring, and then the woman enters the room.

Sherlock throws his arms up.

"I don't know who you are, but – " he begins, and then stops, because that is when an alarm fires off. It rings like a siren, from every room on the floor, deafening, and both he and the woman cover their ears. They face each other, both realizing at the same time that the other has no idea what's going on.

The computers all flash red.

The alarm keeps ringing, like the incessant warning. But a warning of _what?_

_Files 324/8000 deleted._ The text writes itself across all of the computer screens, displayed dozens of times.

_Files 451/8000 deleted._

The woman steps forward, making Sherlock back away. She picks up her gun, but doesn't press the trigger.

_Files 894/8000 deleted._

She throws herself at Sherlock, and he spins, avoiding her –

_Files 2196/8000 deleted._

- until she straightens back up and swings her gun at him.

_Files 4087/8000 deleted._

He turns his head, so rather than receiving blunt trauma to the skull he receives a nasty blow to the jaw.

_Files 6302/8000 deleted._

He stumbles, seeing black dots. The woman is yelling something at him. What is she saying? What is she –

_Files 7024/8000 deleted._

– oh. She's saying, "Shut down the system!"

He can't. He doesn't know how. He doesn't know what's happening.

_Files 7289/8000 deleted._

She's shaking him violently, making his head rock, but she's not trying to kill him.

"Shut down the system!"

_Files 8000/8000 deleted._

The computer screens turn blank. The alarm abruptly switches off. The room is dark, unnervingly silent again.

"I don't –" Sherlock begins. The woman punches him in the face.

"Are you the key maker?" she shouts. The words are heavily accented.

"No," he gasps, clutching his eye, and realizes immediately that this was the wrong thing to say.

"You're not? Were you a _distraction?"_ Cursing in Russian, she grabs the front of his neck and slams him against a wall. He punches, but she dodges easily, and then he feels the cold tip of her gun press against his temple. Her finger reaches the trigger.

The gun goes off.

The woman's grasp on his neck loosens. Her lips part, as if in mild surprise, and her dark eyes widen. And then she stumbles back and sways. Sherlock watches, bewildered. The woman collapses like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Standing behind her is Dr. Madder.

* * *

She's holding a gun with two hands, and those hands are shaking. Her entire body trembles so much that Sherlock thinks she might fall. Slowly, she lowers her arms. And blinks.

"Thank you, Mr. Holmes." she says. She looks down at the woman between them, who landed on her stomach, limbs sprawled. There's a solid bullet mark in her back; a circle of red rushes from it. "She's quite dead, don't you agree?" Her words are light, but her voice wavers.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock asks. He sees that she's not, and hates asking pointless questions. But this is the only way he knows how to show concern.

Dr. Madder ignores him. "I owe you an apology. I had hoped to give you at least a full week of rest, but my work here was urgent. Of course, I don't recall asking to you follow." She manages a weak smile. "Well then. You made an excellent distraction, didn't you? I should have tipped you more in the taxi."

She turns around. She's swaying a bit on her toes, like she might faint, but she begins to walk out of the room. As she exits the doorway, she says something so softly that only someone with senses as keen as Sherlock's could hope to hear her: "No, Mr. Holmes. I'm not alright."

* * *

Sherlock thinks of John and Irene Adler. He watched them both kill people – John more than once. Neither ever seemed to care. It was an odd reaction, he knew. But he attributed the apathy to John's military past and Irene's psychopathy. Dr. Anabelle Madder is neither a soldier nor a psychopath.

Sherlock and her ride home in silence. During the ride she puts a wad of crumpled yen in his hand; her intentions become apparent as soon as they reach the house in Sakae-mura, when she runs inside, leaving him to pay the cabbie.

Sherlock slips his shoes off in the foyer, hearing her get sick in the bathroom. Not sure why he's doing so, he follows her. He finds her clutching either side of the toilet, perspiration dripping down her face. Tears, too, he thinks.

She kneels and he stands in silence. Once she's finished, she flushes the toilet and leans, wobbling, against the bathroom sink. She begins to wash her mouth out. Sherlock doesn't know why he's watching. He doesn't understand why she's letting him. He tried watching John vomit once; he'd caught a nasty stomach virus from a patient in the clinic. John had slammed the bathroom door in his face, which was understandable. Maybe Dr. Madder just doesn't notice he's here.

She disproves that theory by addressing him.

"I am quite ashamed," she whispers, looking into the depths of her sink.

"Don't be," he says. "People get sick all of the time, perfectly normal bodily – "

"Not that," she says. Then gives a small smile. "My getting sick just makes us even."

He's about to ask what she means, but then realizes that she must have seen him in some nasty states while he was sick in Ethiopia. He frowns.

"I gave myself permission to kill her," she says. "I mean, not this morning. Months ago. I thought that, somehow…that would make it less difficult. But it hasn't helped."

No matter what Sherlock says, he knows he's not unfeeling. Rather, he prefers to actively choose what to feel, rather than letting his emotions control his actions. In most of Sherlock's experiences, he has the choice to feel an emotion connected to a person, or an emotion connected to his work. He can feel bad for the mother that was murdered under mysterious circumstances, or he can feel energized at the thought of solving her case. Sherlock Holmes may feel both emotions, in fact, but he will always _act_ on the latter.

So in this particular scenario, curiosity concern.

"Who was she?" Sherlock asks.

"Halinka Gromov," she answers. She grabs a nearby washcloth and wipes off her mouth. "She was Jim Moriarty's right hand woman."

"And she was after…something. Something you prevented her from obtaining."

_Are you the key maker?_ she'd asked.

And then it clicks. Sherlock's mind leaps. Images and words flash through it, all piecing together to make a revelation:

1. The mathematical books in the house.

2. Dr. Madder's smile when he told her she's a translator.

3. Months and months before, in the familiar flat he misses so much, when a certain criminal mastermind told him, _"In a room of locked doors, the man with the key is king…"_

"The key that can unlock any computer in the world," Sherlock says, "it doesn't exist. It's never existed."

"I wish that were true, Mr. Holmes. Very much," Dr. Madder says solemnly.

"Moriarty broke into Pentonville Prison, the Bank of England, and the Tower of London." Sherlock is speaking quickly. "He told me it was daylight robbery."

"Well, when my brother stole Mr. Moriarty's phone, Mr. Moriarty could scarcely admit to having simply _lost_ the code, could he?" Dr. Madder asks. A moment goes by, and Sherlock smiles.

"No," he breathes. "He couldn't."

Dr. Madder mirrors none of Sherlock's excitement, offers no congratulations for him having worked out the information. She can't even meet his gaze.

Oh, right. She killed a person and is upset about it.

Is she still on _that?_ Sherlock feels like that was ages ago.

"So you're a cryptographer. Which means you likely know who made the key code…" Sasaki Facilities, he remembers. That's where they'd been. "You know Mr. Sasaki."

For some reason, Dr. Madder chuckles. "Yes. We're well acquainted."

"And Mr. Sasaki developed the key code that can unlock…anything, yes?"

"Yes."

"Do you have the means to introduce me to Mr. Sasaki?" Sherlock asks.

"You would like to meet him?" Dr. Madder finally looks at him.

"Very much so."

"Well, Mr. Holmes," she says, and holds out her right hand, "it's a pleasure. But please. Just call me Dr. Madder."


	5. The Plans of Dr Madder

Sherlock Holmes sits cross-legged at the end of his futon, his bare toes touching the tatami mats that cover the floor. The air is cold and still, allowing for the sound of his measured, long breaths to scratch off the walls of the room. He holds his face in his hands, nose pressed into his palm. He tugs at his curls, twirls his fingers around them, so deep in thought he doesn't notice that the curls are no longer there. He waits until his thoughts float, like freefalling sheets of loose-leaf, to the sunken depths of his brain. Until the thoughts have settled, he cannot concentrate on any particular problem. He keeps his eyes closed and waits for lucidity.

It's his morning routine.

Problem: It's not morning.

Well, it is. But it's one of the lonesome hours of morning that are good for nothing except discreet murders in back alleys. It's 3 A.M., and Sherlock doesn't usually wake until sunrise. He hasn't noticed the time, though, or the darkness seeping through the windows of his bare room. He remains oblivious until his head-clearing process finishes.

Once it does, Sherlock looks up. With his brain in a more manageable state, he's able to take note of what his transportation is up to.

He becomes aware of a racing heart. Perspiration is leaking down his neck, underarms, and groin area. He has stuttered breathing, now that his lungs aren't under his careful control. Shaking hands.

He's in a state of arousal. That's his physiological reaction, but what emotion triggered it?

_Fear, _his subconscious murmurs.

Fear. Why? He hasn't been awake long enough for something to happen –

Oh. He remembers.

He had a _nightmare._

Yes, yes. He remembers now. He dreamt he was John, walking down the halls of Sasaki Facilities. It'd been very realistic – his line of vision had even descended by several inches, and he swears his left shoulder thrummed out a dull ache. He had been looking for his friend but couldn't find him, at least not for a long time. He was under the impression that he'd been walking through the Sasaki Facilities for hours, being watched by those great grey walls, but you know how dreams are. They skip to the important bits. (Sherlock likes dreams for that.) So he'd found himself, as John, in the heart of Sasaki Facilities. Not sure what "in the heart" means. It was simply that. It was the heart, the epicenter, the middle room, the cheese in the center of the maze, and –

Yes. He'd found his friend there.

Sherlock Holmes, laying on the floor face first. He – John – walked into the room, reached his hand out –

_He's __**my**__ friend._

- and turned him over. The black-haired detective was decomposed. He'd been rotting in the heart of Sasaki Facilities for weeks. His tissues had been stripped away, exposing flashes of yellowed bone. His skin was blackened and bloodless, and he was feeding the maggots with the whites of his eyes. His sockets were empty, exposing the soft, grey brain inside. He was a corpse. Nothing more.

The detective had been a liar after all. He wasn't a god, he was a fraud. A mortal. A man.

A gunshot went off, making John jump. He looked at Sherlock, the liar.

Sherlock Holmes had just been shot. He'd just died, a fresh bullet wound in his still-warm skin, his eyes glossed over and pale. John looked up.

Dr. Madder was standing in the doorway, a gun in her two hands.

"Did I kill your friend?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. He had John's voice.

"Oh. Sorry about that."

* * *

That was when Sherlock had woken up. Now he grabs his phone from his pajama pants pocket (not _his_ pajama pants – the unidentified male,the likely boyfriend), and sends a text.

(3:08 A.M) _I'm not decomposing._

The response from the phone company is instantaneous:

(3:08 A.M.) _We're sorry, but the number you have texted cannot be reached._

He sends another text to John's number, over and over again, as if one of the texts will somehow slip through Mycroft's infuriating block and find their way to 221B.

(3:08 A.M.) _I'm not decomposing._

(3:08 A.M.) _I'm not decomposing._

(3:09 A.M.) _I'm not decomposing._

(3:09 A.M.) _I'm not decomposing_

The default texts are sent back to his phone, but he ignores them. He almost ignores the ensuing text of Mycroft's too, out of sheer stubbornness, but eventually reads:

(3:10 A.M.) _You realize his phone is not currently on his person now, yes?_

No, Sherlock hadn't realized that. Obviously. How was he supposed to know?

(3:10 A.M.) _Did you nick his phone, you git?_

(3:10 A.M.) _Don't be absurd. John is in jail._

Sherlock pauses. Jail? Jail for what? What could John, the doctor, the war hero, possibly have done? Unless Mycroft had locked him up "for his own safety." Sherlock wouldn't put it past his brother.

(3:11 A.M.) _Why is he in jail?_

(3:11 A.M.)_ Surely you recall that he assaulted the Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard?_

Oh. _That._ But that had been so long ago, and besides… The Chief Superintendent had been an idiot. Surely that fact made John's punch somehow less illegal?

(3:12 A.M.) _Get him out,_ Sherlock says. Should be a simple enough task for Mycroft.

(3:12 A.M.) _I got his sentence shortened to 3 months._

(3:12 A.M.) _I said: Get him out._

(3:12 A.M.) _3 months in a structured environment is what he needs._

Sherlock snorts. Piss off, Mycroft.

(3:13 A.M.) _Get him out._

(3:13 A.M.) _You've put him through a lot._

That makes Sherlock pause. Three months… Dr. Madder had hinted that she had a shorter way to crush Moriarty's web. Sherlock pictures arriving home, fresh in London, just as John is released from jail. They'd return to 221B at the same time, meeting at the door. John's absence would cancel out Sherlock's, and vice versa, so it would be like no time had passed at all.

The urge to speak to Dr. Madder overwhelms him. Annoyingly, she'd been in no state to explain much after revealing herself as "Mr. Sasaki," the maker of the key code. ("Actually, it's a symmetric-key algorithm," she'd said.) She's sleeping now, of course, but Sherlock no longer cares. She contains information and he intends to extract it from her.

His phone buzzes again.

(3:14 A.M.) _Would you care to tell me where you are now, dear brother?_

He ignores the text and leaves his bedroom. Across the hall is the door leading to Dr. Madder's bedroom. He pauses for a moment, feeling the soles of his feet against the cold floor. He's accustomed to getting a layer of dust caked on his feet whenever he walks across the floor without slippers, but here the floor is too clean. A filter has been built into the walls of the house. It buzzes, lowly. The air is light, refreshing, like a cool glass of water with a lemon slice. He's half a world away from 221B, and feels it.

He walks across the hall, turns Dr. Madder's doorknob, and enters the room.

She's not there.

His spartan guest bedroom is more luxurious than the house's master bedroom. Dr. Madder doesn't have a futon. There are no Hokusai paintings on her walls. There is a square, bare-floored space containing a comforter folded neatly against a wall. There is a small wooden bin in the corner of the room, and it holds what appears to be the entire contents of Dr. Madder's wardrobe.

Minimalism doesn't put Sherlock off. Plenty of things to deduce from minimalism. John was a minimalist when he moved in; it meant that he was a soldier, recently returned home, but reluctant to acquire new possessions. It meant that part of him was still in Afghanistan, and it was Sherlock's job to get him out. Dr. Madder's minimalism is different. She's a cryptographer, maybe the best in the world, maybe verging on genius… Maybe Dr. Madder has free-falling thoughts that need settling, too. Maybe those thoughts settle better on bare, clean floors.

"Trouble sleeping?" Sherlock turns when he hears Dr. Madder's voice.

She has a fluffy white towel around her. It protects her modesty but reveals two scarred and muscled arms. Her hair's wet and dark, brushed back behind her ears.

"Tell me how you plan to defeat Moriarty's web," Sherlock demands.

_"I've_ had trouble sleeping." Dr. Madder enters the room as if Sherlock hadn't spoken. "Close your eyes, Mr. Holmes."

Impatiently, Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut. He hears the towel slip off, falling to the floor, as Dr. Madder retrieves some clothes from her wooden bin.

"Spilling blood is a taboo in Shintoism," she speaks as she dresses. "The Shinto have cleansing rituals, primarily involving water. Thinking of that, I thought a cold bath might help me."

"Did it?" Sherlock asks.

"Time is the only true antidote to anything Death does not choose to heal," she says, in a tone more appropriate for comments on the weather. "You can open your eyes now."

Dr. Madder wears a black top and black yoga pants. Her back is facing him as she leans over to pick up her towel, and he spots a long, white slash stretching across her right calf. Like someone cut her with the tip of a knife.

"Tell me your plans," Sherlock says, keeping his eyes on the cut. Dr. Madder turns on her heels and, in one fluid motion, sinks to the floor and crosses her legs, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

"Sit," she says.

Sherlock remains standing. Dr. Madder rolls her eyes but doesn't comment.

"Let's compare my plans to yours, shall we? _You_ were going to travel the world, seeking out Mr. Moriarty's terrorist cells one by one," Dr. Madder begins. "Eventually you would have been discovered. Consider it: Sherlock Holmes dies, and a month later one of the most active cells in Sudan is found? Coincidence, surely. But if similar incidents continued to occur? Mr. Moriarty is one of the brightest men in the world, he can put two-and-two together – "

"Moriarty is dead," Sherlock interrupts. He feels an immature satisfaction in knowing something she doesn't, for once.

"You – you killed him?" Her eyes widen.

"He shot himself," Sherlock says, remembering. "In the mouth. I believe he thought it would startle me."

"Did it?" she asks.

"A bit," he admits.

"He committed suicide… That doesn't surprise me," she says.

"You know him personally?" Sherlock asks. He's almost positive, but there's no room for certainty with Dr. Madder.

"Not important right now." She swipes her hand as if brushing the topic away. "Although, thank you for the information. This makes my plans even better. You see, Mr. Holmes, you don't have to crush the entirety of Mr. Moriarty's web. Only its center. Mr. Moriarty has – _had_ – three top assistants: Ms. Gromov, Mr. Adelbert Gruner, and a certain Englishman by the name of Colonel Sebastian Moran. Both Moran and Gruner are up for trial in England right now – who knows how long the trial will drag on. If they are convicted, Mr. Holmes, then the web will untangle itself. You will be free to return to your life. If they're acquitted, then," she tilts her head, "you'll need me."

"So you're suggesting we wait until their trial is over," Sherlock says. "And do nothing in the meantime."

"Not quite. _Your_ problem is Mr. Moriarty's web. _My_ problem is that I've created the world's most advanced computer code, and if anyone gets their hands on it, then…" Dr. Madder swallows. "We'll just not consider that right now. The point is that the code needs to be destroyed."

"Did you not destroy it last night, in Sasaki Facilities?" Sherlock asks. Why else would she have gone through the trouble of deleting those files, and almost getting Sherlock shot? For what other purpose would she have killed Gromov, after never having killed before?

"Parts of it. The bulk of it, actually," she says. "It can no longer simply be stolen as Moriarty stole it – it no longer exists in its whole state."

"Ah," Sherlock says, abruptly understanding. "How long did it take you to create the code, Dr. Madder?"

"Ten years," she says.

"And you were traveling that whole time, weren't you?"

"My brother and I were, yes."

"Picture this: A genius," Sherlock begins, linking his hands behind his back (he misses the familiar tug of his tight, buttoned shirts), "fresh from university. Obsessed with computer codes, but _bored_. She wants a change, so she decides to create the ultimate computer code. Something that disregards all security standards. She's young, though. A naïve optimist. She doesn't think of the consequences. So she's unsuspecting with her research. She leaves notes in the margins of textbooks in university libraries. She emails past professors lines of the code that particularly excite her. She's open, honest. Practically begging for someone like Moriarty to steal her work."

As he talks, he paces around her, a small smile playing at his lips. He feels much less baffled by her. No one's a mystery. Not truly. Not once you've been given all the facts.

"She didn't expect to one day have to destroy her greatest creation, but now that she has to… she doesn't know where to start."

"And who better to employ than the world's greatest dead detective, to track all the little bits of code I've left scattered across the globe?" Dr. Madder finishes for him.

"You can't just find them yourself?" he asks.

"I'm a cryptographer," she says. "Not a detective. You're right, right about everything. I need to hack into my old professors' email accounts. I need to burn books and files, destroy any evidence of the Sasaki Code, so that it can never be replicated. And I'd like your help."

"That's not the only thing, though." He's standing behind her. She doesn't try to turn and face him, but he can sense her surprise.

"Isn't it?"

"You're remarkably unsuspicious, Dr. Madder. You wanted to create the Sasaki Code, but not use it. Yet _someone_ in your life has been suspicious. Or else you'd be dead. What is your brother's name, Dr. Madder?"

Pause. Then, "Luke. Luke Madder."

"Luke came up with the idea of creating an imaginary cryptographer, didn't he? He built the Sasaki Facilities, and invented false files, making Souta Sasaki real on paper. That way, if the code _was_ discovered, no one could trace it to you. They'd find the nonexistent Mr. Sasaki instead. A precaution."

"Yes," she says.

"That wasn't the only precaution he took, was it, Dr. Madder?"

"You really are good, Mr. Holmes. Very," she says. "How much have you guessed?"

"Not guessed," he says. "Observed. I've been listening. Luke Madder traveled with you as you made a living as a cryptographer." He thinks of her familiarity with Ethiopia. "You've done code work in the East, in the Middle East, West Africa… all while developing the invulnerable Sasaki Code on the side. And your brother, what did he do?"

"Everything," she says. "He was my John Watson, Mr. Holmes. He even had a blog on us. He was my assistant, my travel agent, my housekeeper."

"But he wasn't kidnapped for housekeeping," Sherlock says.

"No," she says. "He – "

Sherlock interrupts. The show-off. Needs to prove that he's figured it out. "He had you two switch roles. You were always seen together, so _he_posed as the cryptographer, and you as the housekeeper. Due to your doubtlessly convincing acting, and people's conceptions of gender roles, no one suspected anything. So much easier to believe the older, male sibling in a duo is the mathematical one, isn't it?

Of course, one day, the Sasaki Code was traced deeper. Mr. Sasaki was discovered to be imaginary, and the hunt for the true cryptographer began. When did Moriarty figure it out? When did he take your brother? After Luke stole Moriarty's phone?"

"It wasn't Mr. Moriarty," Dr. Madder says. "He was, actually, the only person who has ever suspected _me_ of being the cryptographer. Gromov believed in Mr. Sasaki. Gruner does too. Moran went for my brother. Moran is convinced – _convinced_ – that my brother created the Sasaki Code." Dr. Madder snorts. "My brother barely knows how to make a Facebook account, let alone create a code that can attack the AES…"

"So you're hiring me to find your brother." Ah, sentiment. Always at the root of things. Sherlock wonders if he should be disappointed. "He's been taken to a secret location and you want to know where."

"Dear god no," Dr. Madder says, and shudders. Sherlock blinks.

"I'm sorry?"

"Please," she says, standing and facing him, "whatever you do, _don't_ find my brother."

"I'm not sure I…" _I'm not sure I understand._ But he can't say it. He can't.

"Even if I knew where he was, there's nothing I can do for him. He took a risk, posing as the world's greatest cryptographer. I never made him do it. He chose to. If we found him, they'd probably end up killing me, or him. Or they'd discover you're alive. Everything would go wrong. As long as he's locked up and they think he created the Sasaki Code, then you and I are free to continue destroying any remnants of the code that remain."

"They're probably trying to make him create a second Sasaki Code. Torturing him, right now. As we speak." Doesn't that concern her?

"Probably," she says. "But they wouldn't kill him, not if they think he's the cryptographer. They think they need him to get the code. And no matter how much they torture him, he can't make the Sasaki Code for them. Because he doesn't know it. If they tortured _me_, however…" She looks away. "Then bad things could happen. If they broke me. And I'm not willing to risk that."

"You're letting your brother be tortured in order to protect a computer code," Sherlock says. It's logical, actually. It makes sense. He'd do that to Mycroft. But he's never seen anyone else act so sensibly. She cares about Luke Madder. He can tell. The clothes on his back – they're not her boyfriend's. She treated them delicately; a sign of sentiment. They're her brother's. This isn't psychopathy, it's not coldness. It's rationality.

"In order to protect the world," she corrects him. "More people than my brother will die if Moran gets the Sasaki Code."

There's a pause. She's not able to look at him.

Finally she sighs. "Good night, Mr. Holmes. Get some rest. Tomorrow will be a long day."

"It's already tomorrow," he says.

She looks at the wall automatically, as if there's a window there. He knows she's imagining the soon-to-be-rising sun.

"That just proves my point," she says.

"About what?"

"That it's going to be a long day."


	6. Sigerson

_Thanks so much to everyone who has 'followed' this story! I didn't realize until now that none of the transition breaks I'd been putting into my chapters had been showing up. So that's...awkward. I've gone back and re-formatted all of the chapters to include transition breaks now, so hopefully the story is more coherent._

_Thanks again!_

* * *

Dreams often don't make much sense, but try to keep up:

He's John again. He's been fighting in Sudan, and the enemy's just captured him. He's locked in one of their cells, and for some reason it looks a lot like the computer room in Sasaki Facilities. The enemies are impish and clever; they've transformed themselves into shadows, and they flit up his ears and seep into his brain. From the folds of his grey tissues, they've dissected all his secrets. His weaknesses. His fears. They're using everything against him.

The torture sounds silly, but in the dream it is excruciating: They're making a lot of pointless noise in the cell. He can't see them, but he knows they're there, making alarms go off, computers buzz. Outside the cell they've got a violinist playing. He plays something beautiful, agonizingly beautiful. It's muddled in the background, but John recognizes the chords, and he knows he's heard the piece myriad times before. If they would just turn off the damned alarm! Then he could hear the song clearly, and give it a name. It's right there… Just out of his grasp… If he could only _name_ it, a thousand sweet memories would come flooding back to him. He's crying, screaming, begging them to turn off the alarm -

He's escaped the cell. (Dreams skip the dull bits, but somehow he knows that's what's happened.) Outside is a comfortable living room, well-furnished with Rococo chairs and sofas, the flooring covered by Persian rugs. John spots the violinist.

"Mr. Holmes?" he says in John's voice. The violinist is Sherlock's father. He's dead, of course, and his corpse has been positioned on a canapé. His lifeless legs are sprawled out, toes touching the rug. His head slumps against the violin's chin rest like it's too heavy to move. His eyes have rolled to the back of his head, and his mouth, which smiled gently in life, is agape and dispelling drool. Only his arms are animated, mechanically scraping the bow across the instrument. The tableau is precisely what it would look like if a violin were given to a zombie.

It's Paganini. Caprice No. 24. How had he not recognized that?

A door opens, making John look away. Dr. Madder comes walking through the doorway. She sees the canapé and frowns.

"Oh Christ," she says, displeased. "He just keeps dying, but I don't know why."

He looks back at where the canapé was, but it's gone now. There's just a wooden floor, and on it is a dead body. Sherlock Holmes. He's decomposing rapidly, like a video set on time lapse. John rushes forward, trying to make it stop. He's got a syringe of formaldehyde in his hand, he needs to inject it, but Sherlock's already rotting, already falling apart, and the stink, the stink he's emitting is unbearable –

Sherlock bolts up.

He takes a moment, while shrugging out of his sheets, to perform his mind-clearing process. Waits for his thoughts to settle. Once they do, he registers the fact that he had a nightmare. It's like a repeat of earlier this morning. He mentally discards the second nightmare (not important), and sends a couple of texts (_I'm not decomposing_).Then he hears screaming.

It's Dr. Madder, from the master bedroom. Sherlock doesn't move because he's heard that type of scream before, from John. Dr. Madder's not in any immediate danger. She's just had a nightmare.

Obviously he's not the only one who's spent the morning in Sasaki Facilities.

Like it had been with John long ago, it doesn't dawn on Sherlock to go comfort her. He gets out of bed and dresses, wishing for the umpteenth time that Luke Madder owned at least one suit.

When he goes to the kitchen, Dr. Madder's already made him tea.

"The rice is warming up," she says, handing him a steaming mug. "We'll have to eat while we work. I've booked a plane that departs at six this evening. No time to waste."

Sherlock sips his tea. It's too hot and not sweet enough. She's put soy milk in it. Damn her.

She doesn't notice that he thinks her tea's crap. Instead she slurps down her own mug and says, "You'll be needing your phone."

He reaches into his pocket. "For Mycroft. Yes."

"How much information do you want to tell him?" she asks.

Sherlock smiles. "As little as possible seems appropriate."

* * *

"Relax, I've dyed eyebrows dozens of times before," she says.

(2:09 P.M.) _Do elaborate on this plan?_

"I'm relaxed," he answers through gritted teeth, and ignores the text from Mycroft.

"You're not. I can feel how tense you are."

(2:10 P.M.) _Who is Anabelle Madder, and why would she prove useful to us?_

"You're standing across the room. How would you know if I'm tense?"

"I can feel it," she insists, and she leans down to get the sterile eye drops out of her kit.

(2:10 P.M.) _We had a plan. You were to follow it._

This time Sherlock reaches for his mobile and types out a reply:

(2:11 P.M.): _This plan is better. Trust me._

(2:11 P.M.) _You've never given me a reason to trust you._

"Trust me," Dr. Madder says. For a second Sherlock thinks she's reading his texts, but she's still across the room. It inspires him, though, so he types:

(2:11 P.M.) _You can trust Dr. Madder._

Blonde eyebrows. She's told him that blonde eyebrows are imperative for the disguise she's planned. What the disguise is, exactly, she has failed to mention.

(2:11 P.M.) _At least tell me where you'll be going._

Sherlock texts back:

(2:12 P.M.) _Berkeley, California._

"My brother can get us a hotel room," he says.

"That would be good. I have a house in Berkeley, but it might not be safe to use it right now," she says, walking toward him.

"Moran and Gruner may be on trial, but their men are lurking all over the globe, I'm sure," Sherlock says.

"Well, that. But mainly it's because my Berkeley house has been rented out to some _very_ radical vegetarians. I don't exactly trust them." She shudders, like she's remembering something. "Now. Close your eyes."

He complies, and presses his lips together when a frigid ointment touches his eyelids.

"Stop twitching," Dr. Madder says.

"I'm not," he snaps.

"You are."

"You didn't think to heat up the ointment?"

Dr. Madder just laughs.

* * *

He looks at himself in the mirror. If he were on his own, his reflection would induce a paralyzing dissociative experience. He doesn't look like Sherlock Holmes. His gray eyes have been covered by dull, brown colored contacts. Dr. Madder showed him how to shave his head, so any fuzz he had is entirely gone. His eyebrows are, indeed, blonde, and the skin around them is red and irritated.

The worst part has to be the scarf. It's silky, nothing like the cashmere one he left in London, and it's the most alarming shade of fuchsia he's ever seen.

"This is absolutely necessary?" he asks, frowning.

"Don't frown," Dr. Madder says. "Sigerson Bøler _never_ frowns."

"No, no, I need to frown," Sherlock says. "The frowning gives me an edge. Otherwise I look like a walking cliché."

"Sigerson Bøler never frowns," Dr. Madder repeats. "You saw your website! You're cheery!"

Yes. He'd seen "his" website.

Sigerson Bøler is one of the most elaborate disguises Dr. Madder and her brother have ever invented. Like Dr. Souta Sasaki, Sigerson Bøler doesn't exist. But he has a passport and is a filed Norwegian citizen. The papers on him are extensive.

Luke Madder, before being kidnapped and likely tortured by Moran's men, had kept a fashion/travel blog for Sigerson Bøler. It is enormously popular and absolutely ridiculous.

**Bio: Sigerson Bøler**

_Model. Photographer. Trust fund baby (am I not supposed to admit that? LOL). Foodie. Traveler. Lover. I'm like the modern day Ibn Battuta, and this blog is my Rihla. LOL. _

"Why would a gay fashion blogger know who Ibn Battuta is?" Sherlock had asked, after reading the front page of Sigerson's absurd blog.

"1. Sigerson is supposed to be friends with the Madders. It was a way for Luke to travel without being spotted. But obviously we'd never befriend a _complete_ idiot, hence the _Rihla_ bit. And 2. You must never admit to being gay. Stop saying the 'g' word. It's not in your vocab now, alright?"

"But he's clearly gay!" Sherlock had said, indignant. "He couldn't possibly be gayer!"

"Stop saying the g-word!" she'd said. "Obviously you are, but you can't bring yourself to admit it. You're comically self-repressed. Even though what you are is apparent to the entire world, you strive to be something else." Sherlock had wished she'd stop using second person.

"Also," she had added, "I had an idea. Just a… Just an idea."

"What is it?"

"You text John a lot." Sherlock had frowned. She must have taken his phone out of his trousers when he'd been changing into tight, purple skinny jeans. "I thought that maybe Sigerson's blog could be a way for you to communicate with John. Once he's out of jail, of course." His frown had deepened. She must have read _all_ of his texts. "If you could get John to read Sigerson's blog, then he could always know roughly where you are. Without actually knowing it's you, of course. Then, once our work is done, it'll be like he hardly missed anything."

Sherlock hadn't admitted it at the time, but the idea appealed to him. He'd agreed to maintain the fashion blog.

Now he turns away from the mirror to answer a text from Mycroft.

"Mycroft's got our hotel booked," he says. "It's in San Francisco. We'll have to make a daily commute to the UC Berkeley." Dr. Madder says she first began to develop the Sasaki Code at the uni in Berkeley, so they're traveling there first.

"Ooh. San Fran used to be the gay capital of the world. It's perfect for you, Sigerson," she says.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sherlock murmurs, typing on his phone. "I'm not gay."

He can feel Dr. Madder grinning beside him.

"Mr. Holmes," she says, grabbing his hand, "in all seriousness, I am very happy to be traveling with you."

Sherlock has noticed that whenever Dr. Madder says anything particularly sincere, her Japanese accent becomes heavier than ever. Right now every syllable is precise and clipped.

Sherlock looks at her for a moment, then heads off toward the foyer, snatching his hand away from hers.

"Come along," he says. "Our plane's leaving soon."


	7. Meltdown

Sherlock enters the hotel room, a vanilla folder tucked underneath his arm. He closes and bolts the door behind him. Looks toward the window.

"You haven't moved all day," he states. He's gotten nearly used to his Norwegian accent; it's not so different from feigning a German one.

He's just returned from the U.C. Berkeley computer labs. He spent the day hacking computers, destroying incriminating books, and telling off pernicious librarians. He hasn't been so singularly determined and clear-headed since Sudan. Dr. Madder has her back toward him. She's cross-legged on the floor, arms folded in her lap, meditative. Facing the glass window that spans across the wall and the sliver of orange setting sun that still lingers outside.

"Thinking," she says.

"Ah," he says. "I know the…" He was going to say 'feeling,' but it's not a feeling, is it? "I know the act," he finishes.

She turns her head. "Did you find any information?"

"Of course I did."

"Would you like to share it?"

"Let's see… Firstly, most of your email accounts – no, make that all of them – were hacked by Moriarty at the beginning of the year."

"I figured," she says.

"And I figured you knew already," he says. "Also, I've done my best to get rid of any remnants of the code that you managed to pass around. Can't say I was entirely successful. The information's dispersed around the globe, nearly impossible to completely trace. I was as thorough as is feasible, however. You should be satisfied. Oh, and two of your professors have been selling everything they know about the Sasaki Code to third parties."

Dr. Madder gapes. _"What?"_

"Yes. A Professor…Gneze, and a Professor Curtis?"

"They wouldn't do that! They're my _friends."_

"Well, they did."

For some reason, Dr. Madder looks angry. Specifically, she's looking at _him_ angrily. Which wasn't the reaction he had expected. He'd anticipated relief, a thank you for his genius services.

"I don't believe you," she says. "I want proof."

"The data in this folder should be sufficient." He tosses the vanilla folder to her. The papers butterfly out, but she collects them.

Silently, he takes off his coat (a pink windbreaker, he doesn't want to talk about it), throws it on the floor, and sprawls himself out on one of the two beds. He picks up his phone and reads Mycroft's most recent text.

(7:14 P.M.) _My people are now following Moran and Gruner's trial. So far little progress._

Useless.

Dr. Madder drops the folder, then flops on her back. Her legs are still crossed, her knees now sticking up in the air.

"I'm an idiot," she declares to the ceiling.

"Yes," says Sherlock.

She gives him a dirty look. "Not helping."

"Not trying to," he says.

She returns to her silence. Sherlock rises and retrieves her laptop from her case; neither of them had a chance to unpack their bags. He has new suitcases that she packed for him, filling them with 'Sigerson's' things. He's afraid to learn what those things are.

He opens up Sigerson's blog and clicks 'new post.' If he's going to have to update this, he might as well start now.

He stares at the screen. His website's format is pink, all pink. Pink background, pink text, pink links. He puts his fingers on the keyboard, finds them fidgeting. Needs his violin so that he can play Paganini's Caprice No. 24. Without that aid, nothing comes to him.

All he wants to do is write to John. _If only you could see me now, John. Or perhaps you wouldn't want to, since you always put so much effort into affirming your heterosexuality when we were together._ No, that won't work. Bit obvious.

How does – _did_ – John do this, all of the time?

_Oh, yes. He was writing about me._

Maybe writing about yourself is difficult. Luke – posing as Sigerson – blogged mainly about Dr. Madder. Sherlock could do that. He'd learned a lot about Dr. Madder by reading her emails. She and Luke Madder aren't actually related, for one thing. They were adopted by the same psychologist in New York City. He'd suspected as much – no two biologically-related siblings would have so few complaints about one another.

_Dr. Madder is missing her big brother,_ he begins. Might as well be honest.

He has almost a full paragraph by the time Dr. Madder's phone buzzes in her pocket. She looks at the screen just as Sherlock is going back to sprinkle his paragraph with a suitable number of less-than-threes and frowny faces.

"Sigerson," Dr. Madder says.

"Yes?"

"My friend Margie, one of the Berkeley librarians, said that today my 'Norwegian friend' verbally assaulted her, and then tore a book from her hands and ran off with it." Dr. Madder sits up, a frown pulling at her lips.

"Oh, that," Sherlock says, continuing to type. "You told me to get rid of any pages of any books you wrote in during your uni years. I went through all the books, but she caught me with one. I had to take it with me. Remind me to dispose of it later."

"_All_ the books?" Dr. Madder is momentarily distracted.

"Not all of them, obviously. I narrowed them down by topic, publication date, etc. Still looked through several thousand, though." A proud smile tugs at his lips. "Like I said before: I was thorough."

"Sigerson, you could have asked the librarians for help. They would have understood, they all know me. I can't believe you told off Margie! She's the sweetest woman!"

Sherlock crinkles his nose. He remembers Margie. He hadn't noticed her when she first approached, not until she grabbed his book from him.

_"What do you think you are doing?"_ she had asked him, oddly menacing for a bespectacled woman in a gray cardigan.

"I need to rip out page 517," he'd said irritably. He'd snatched the book back and tore out the page, shoving it into his pocket.

"That is the property of UC Berkeley!" The woman had been aghast. "How – how dare–"

"How long ago was it?" he'd interrupted.

"How long ago was what?" she'd asked, distracted.

"That your father died? Recently, I'm guessing. Three months? Six months, at most? How did he do it? Was it an overdose, or from the withdrawal?" He saw her story there, written on her sleeves and under her eyes. Obvious.

Her eyes had immediately filled with tears. Typical.

"Who – who are you?" she'd asked.

He'd been very, very tempted to say, "Sherlock Holmes." But he hadn't, of course. He'd put his hand on his heart and bowed. In his thickest Norwegian accent, he'd said, "Sigerson Bøler, fashionista extraordinaire!" Then he'd taken off with the book and dashed down the aisle, leaving the woman teary-eyed and gaping behind him.

It'd been funny, at the time.

Now he says, in a soprano, mocking tone, "Ooh! Silly me! I could have asked the _librarians_ for help!" He pretends to speak to one. "Um, excuse me, could you pretty please help me look for hints of this top secret code my friend made? If we don't find it people may use it to destroy the world!" His eyes flash and he sits up. When his voice returns to normal, he realizes he's lost his Norwegian accent: "You need to stop being so naïve. You can't blurt out our mission to everyone that passes on the street."

"I know them – "

"You know your old professors, too," he says. Then corrects, "Or thought you did." In case anyone outside can hear him, he manages to use his accent again._"Secrets,_ Dr. Madder. Secrets keep people safe. You don't have your big brother to protect you anymore. You need me. Therefore, I am going to proceed in the most efficient manner possible, and you aren't going to bother telling me when I've offended _librarians."_

Dr. Madder stands. She walks to the hotel room door and slips on her boots. Sherlock panics for a moment, feels his mouth go dry, is deadly afraid she's going to say, "Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes. Obviously this situation isn't working."

_No, no, you can't leave,_ he thinks. _Don't leave don't leave don't leave._

Instead she says, "I need some air."

Sherlock wants to shout with glee. This is a perfectly acceptable thing to want. John needed air a lot, but he always came back.

Dr. Madder doesn't even slam the door behind her.

* * *

She returns a few hours later. "I'm not angry anymore," she declares, kicking off the boots. Angry? So she _had_ she'd been angry before? She hadn't shouted or anything. He's confused.

"That's good," is all Sherlock says.

"But I came to a conclusion during my walk."

Sherlock turns over on his bed, looking at her cautiously. "And?"

"If you want to continue working together, we're going to have to make several changes," she says.

Sherlock calculates. Could she actually afford to stop working with him? No, of course not. She _does_ need him. But she could have more days like today. With him working alone, her staying in the hotel room. Or she could leave him and have him work everything out on his own. She could leave him and have him stranded in his own personal hell, floating amongst his nonsensical dissociations.

"I haven't made enough changes already?" he asks, gesturing to…himself. Sigerson Bøler.

She smiles. "Disguises are just precautions."

"What do you propose?"

"I don't like the way you talked about Margie. Like she didn't matter just because she's a librarian," she says earnestly, taking a seat across from him, on her own bed.

He snorts. "That's scarcely our biggest concern at the moment, don't you think?"

"It bothers me," she says. "I think that you need to…live in the real world."

"I am," he says. "I'm right here, Dr. Madder. Please, if you're not going to make sense, then – "

"You need to get a job."

They stare at each other for a moment. Neither blinks.

"I have a job," he says. "You hired me, or have you already forgotten?"

"Don't be condescending," she says. "It's annoying. You need a _real_ job, just once. Have you ever been formally employed?"

His heart begins to pound, but outwardly he only rolls his eyes. "Dull. Boring. Predictable. I don't need a real job, I'm perfectly occupied and productive – "

"If you don't I'm leaving."

He looks at her. Her features convey absolute conviction. She means it. She's not all wishy-washy like John.

He hates her. He despises her. He almost wants to hurt her.

"Fine," he says, sitting up. "But this won't work. I can try, but no one will hire me, I'm not _likable."_ He spits out the word like it's a flaw he's proud not to have.

"I already got you hired." She grins. "The bakery three subway stops away owes me a favor. They agreed to take you. And besides – everyone loves Sigerson!" Her smiles wavers. "Besides Margie, now."

"I'll try it for a week," he says. "But this is a complete waste of time. It's taking away from our – "

" – work. I know. But it will add to your character. You're… You're a snob, Mr. –" She stops herself and finishes, "Sigerson."

He glowers.

"So you'll take the job?"

"A week."

"That's all I ask."

Ask? She's not asking. He has no choice. "When do I begin?"

"Tomorrow morning." She sounds so bright and chipper. He hates her.

He hates her.

* * *

"TWENTY BUTTERED BUNS AND A GINGERBREAD COOKIE," the fat man with the bald head yells.

"I can hear you from here! I'm only a few feet away!" Sherlock yells back, actually not much quieter than his boss.

A customer rings the bell on the counter. _Ding!_

"Excuse me, sir. I'm ready for you to take my order!"

"One moment!" Sherlock shouts, but the man can't seem to hear him. He keeps ringing the damn bell.

The radio is playing, too, in speakers right above Sherlock's head. He can't help but hear the lyrics.

_Hey, I just meant you_

_and this is crazy,_

_but here's my number,_

_so call me, maybe?_

"I'm ready, sir, I know my order!"

Sherlock squats down, stepping on his apron. He readjusts his feet, eyes scanning the ovens frantically. Damn it. Damn it. Where the hell are the gingerbread cookies?

_Ding! Ding! Dingdingding!_

"Sir? Sir, I'm ready with my order!"

"One moment!" Sherlock shouts over his shoulder. He spots the gingerbread cookies and, with a gloved hand, grabs them and shoves them into a white paper bag. Half of them crumble in his fist.

_Ding! Ding! _He fetches the buttered rolls. By the time he reaches the cash register, he finds his line has doubled.

_You took your time with the call,_

_I took no time with the fall -_

"Who ordered the buttered rolls and gingerbread cookies?" Sherlock asks. A fat woman steps up, taking out her wallet. "That will be $11.90," he says, calculating the tax in his head. His eyes dart around at all the buttons on the cash register. He pokes some random ones to make the thing pop open and takes out the proper amount of cash, already predicting that she's going to hand him three fives.

"Thank…you," the woman says, a little unnerved when she's handed her change before he takes her money.

"Yes, yes, now get out!" he yells, shoving the bags at her.

"I only ordered _one_ gingerbread cookie," she says. He snatches the cookie bag back, opens it, and pours most of the cookies into the trashcan by his feet. He pushes the bag back in her hand.

"This cookie is broken – "

"GET OUT!" he snaps. The woman whimpers and retreats.

_Ding! Ding! Ding!_

Sherlock twirls to the man by the bell, flashing him his best, biggest smile. It shows all of his teeth and makes him look like a grizzly bear.

"May I take your order?" he says.

_It's hard to look right at you, baby -_

_"I'd like a –"_

_- but here's my number_

_so call me, maybe?_

By the time Sherlock can focus on anything other than the infernal speaker over his head, he realizes that the man has already finished his order.

"Repeat that, I didn't get it," he says.

"I. SAID," the man now shouts and over enunciates every word for some reason, "THAT. I. WOULD. LIKE. THREE. PINK. FROST. ED. COOK. IES. AND. A. BOT. TLE. OF. WAT. ER."

"Thank you," Sherlock says quietly, to make a point. But as he turns around he hears the man murmur to the customer behind him, "Honestly, I don't understand why everyone's hiring these foreigners. If you can't understand a word of English, then you shouldn't work in America."

_Before you came into my life_

_I missed you so bad -_

By the time Sherlock retrieves the bottle of water, the boss has gotten impatient and is shouting the next customer's order at him.

"PICKUP FOR CHEESECAKE. PICKUP FOR CHEESECAKE."

"I CAN HEAR YOU," Sherlock says, and gets to the cash register. "That's $6.19," he tells the man who over enunciated. He gets the change ready and looks up, waiting. The man's struggling to find his wallet in his briefcase.

"Honestly," Sherlock hisses, and he leans over the counter and grabs the man's briefcase.

"Hey!"

Sherlock finds the wallet, shoves the man's change in it, and retrieves a ten. "Have a nice day!" he says, smiling falsely, and hands back the briefcase.

"You can't just – "

But Sherlock's already looking around for that cheesecake. The song on the radio switches.

_Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is_

_Black and yellow, black and yellow -_

Immediately, this song is ten times worse than the last one. Panicking, Sherlock looks at his boss, who's mixing flour, and says, "Can we turn off the radio?"

The man just laughs.

_Yeah, uh-huh, you know what it is_

_Black and yellow, black and yellow -_

And then,_ Ding! Ding!_

"Sir! I'm in a rush and I've gotta make this order!" A blonde woman in huge sunglasses, obviously from L.A., is waving a wad of cash above her head. "Can you hurry up?"

"Please, sir, I need that cheesecake for my daughter's birthday party – "

_Ding! Ding! Dingdingding! -_

_There are so many rocks in my watch_

_I can't tell the time_

_Black and yellow, black and yellow - _

_Ding! Ding!_

"A COFFEE, SIGERSON. THIS LADY NEEDS A COFFEE." That's the boss.

_Black and yellow, black and yellow –_

Frantically, Sherlock grabs the man's cheesecake from the back, holds in with one arm, turning it on its side so that it falls against its lid, and dashes to the coffee machine. He pours a steaming cup of coffee, skips the milk, sugar, and lid, and dashes to the counter.

"TAKE THE DAMN CAKE! IT'S ON THE HOUSE!" he roars in his English accent, and he throws the cake at the man. "AND HERE'S YOUR COFFEE. WAS I FAST ENOUGH?"

He throws the steaming coffee at the woman in the same second. The man yells in indignation as the lid splits open, splattering cake all over his suit, but the woman screams in agony.


	8. Aftermath

"Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him ... " -Watson, A Study in Scarlet

* * *

"Valesne?" he asks. "Tu bonus es?" He's leaning over Sherlock, dark eyebrows furrowed in concern. His rounded spectacles are falling off the bridge of his nose. Sherlock had always wanted his father's nose; it was long and straight and imperious, the nose of a philosopher. Sherlock had gotten his cheekbones, but that'd never felt like enough. When he was a child he used to fantasize about crawling into his father's skin, or slipping it on, like a costume. Except a costume he'd never take off, and he'd be Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes forever.

"Salveo," Sherlock manages to slur. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his jaw stiff and aching.

"What was that?" It's not his father's voice. He's not sure he ever heard his father speak English. He recognizes the voice, though. Is it his mother?

"Sigerson, did you say something?"

Who is Sigerson…?

Oh.

_Oh._

Sherlock bolts up, and puts on his Norwegian accent. "Where am I?"

When he opens his eyes, he finds the room is dark. He's in a soft chair, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He throws it off of himself and stands. "Please, sit down." It's Dr. Madder. He can see her silhouette coming toward him.

He collapses back into the seat. Not because she asked him to, but because he's exhausted. He's trembling, and suddenly wishes he hadn't dropped that blanket so quickly.

"Where am I?" he repeats.

"A police station, Mr. Bøler." Dr. Madder doesn't say this. There's a police officer standing beside her. Sherlock can tell from his authoritative tone. "Can I turn on the lights?"

"Why are they off?" Sherlock asks, although in fact the darkness relieves him.

"Anabelle thought it might…help," the police officer says. He says this in a tone that would make any eavesdropper think he's trying to converse with a scared, possibly dangerous, animal.

"Can you remember what happened, Sigerson?" Dr. Madder asks kindly. Far too kindly. Sherlock is suspicious.

"Of course I can," he spits. "The bakery…"

He'd forgotten himself for a moment. He'd been so upset, and he hadn't understood_ why._ Which is to say, he knew that it was the music, and the customers, and the haste with which he was forced to do everything (and the way everyone else was so _slow_), and that damn bell, etc. But why was he being forced to do that? Why had he agreed to do that? It'd been too much – it'd made him furious. There hadn't been anything wrong with him. Rather, the world had been quaking, tectonic plates suddenly splitting apart from one another, the planet itself tearing right in the middle. He'd been standing in its center, whole while it insisted on being otherwise, and he'd done what had made sense, at the time.

"How is she?" Sherlock asks quietly. The woman from L.A. on whom he'd thrown the coffee. Jesus. What had he been thinking? Not thinking, obviously. He panics for a moment. Does this mean he's insane?

A police station.

Is he a criminal now? Wildly, he thinks that Moriarty predicted this, knew he'd freak out in a bakery in California, knew he'd be locked up. Is this his fall? He hadn't realized that, somewhere inside, he's still waiting for his fall.

"Fine," Dr. Madder says, and sniffs. "Honestly, I saw it. Went to visit her in the E.R. She was overdramatic about it. The coffee just splashed her toes a bit – she's fine."

Sherlock relaxes into his chair. He hadn't realized he'd been tense.

"What's my charge?" Sherlock asks, then corrects: "What are my charges?"

"No charges," the police officer says. "You're free to go as soon as you're ready."

"But I…I threw coffee at that woman. _Intentionally."_ Sherlock remembers more. "I punched the baker and resisted arrest, and I'm not being charged with anything?"

The police officer gives Dr. Madder a look, seeming unsure of what to say. Dr. Madder finally says, "Gary here has been nice enough not to file this particular…incident. Are you ready to go, Sigerson?"

Sherlock stands, deciding it's best not to question these strokes of good luck. At least not until he's a safe distance from the police station. He can tell Dr. Madder's hiding something.

Before the three of them leave the room, Gary says, "Dr. Madder, I need you to sign a few forms. They need to be signed within thirty days, but if now is convenient, would you…?"

"Of course," Dr. Madder says, and she gives Sherlock a glance. "Do you want to wait out in the hall?"

He nods, just a jerk of his head, and leaves.

God dammit. He's still wearing the ridiculous apron. He unties it, taking note of the offices on either side of him. He hears indistinguishable murmuring from the one he just left; they're trying to be discreet. He grows even more suspicious, but before he can creep directly outside the door, in hope of catching a clear word or two, he hears loud voices from another office across the hall.

"Thought he'd nearly kill someone, state he was in," a man is saying.

"I was almost going to suggest a tranquilizer myself," another agrees.

"I never knew aspies could get so violent, did you?" the first may says.

"An aspie?"

"Like the baker boy. Someone with _Asperger's."_

"Ooh, I see," the second man says, but Sherlock's stopped listening.

There are two possibilities. Either Dr. Madder told a very excellent lie in order to get him out of an arrest, or Dr. Madder thinks he has Asperger's.

She exits the office a few minutes later. He's hoping that on the tube back to the hotel she'll boast of the lie she told and they can have a laugh about it. Then he can pretend, during a brief, pathetic handful of seconds that tick by too quickly, that her laughter sounds like John's.

As soon as he sees her face he knows this won't happen. She's carefully composed, like she's looking at something fragile. A fine piece of porcelain, perhaps. Or someone mental.

"Do you want a hug?" she asks carefully.

"No," he sneers, disgusted by the thought. He turns around and begins walking away.

"Sigerson, wait," she says, but he doesn't stop. She follows him outside the station. As soon as they're on the pavement, he says, "Don't bother worrying about me. Because I'm fine and I don't have," he snorts, _"Asperger's."_ 'What an absurd notion,' his tone implies.

"Can we talk about this at the hotel?" she asks.

"There's nothing to discuss. I'm fine," he says coldly, and continues striding down the block.

* * *

On the tube, while they're sitting next to each other, she brings it up again.

"Have you ever seen a doctor, Sigerson?"

Sort of.

_"We're afraid that if your son doesn't begin receiving weekly therapy sessions, he will no longer be permitted to attend our school."_ That's what the headmaster of his boarding school had told Mummy, a week before she'd pulled him out of the school and decided that father would homeschool him. Mycroft had been furious with her, but she was possibly the only person in the world Mycroft could never intimidate. Especially back then.

Then there'd been the psychiatrist in rehab. But she'd been an idiot.

"Yes," he answers, honestly. "Once."

"Did she or he give you any type of…diagnosis, Sigerson?"

Ah, the rehab therapist. She'd_ hated_ him. Had been determined to diagnose him with_ something _to make his life hell. What she hadn't realized was that he'd pre-picked the mental illness he wanted her to diagnose him with. He'd looked up its symptoms and displayed each of them in her office, had illustrated a false history to give her even more evidence. They'd verbally sparred back and forth, and she always assumed herself to be in a position of power over him, but she'd never known that she'd played directly into his hands. Given him just what he'd always wanted: Armor.

"Yes, she did," he says. "I'm a diagnosed sociopath."

He waits for her to shrink away from him, to suddenly forget every ounce of sentiment he may have accidentally revealed to her, and to clench her teeth like Sally Donovan and say, _"Freak." _It would feel good. Sociopathy is his protection, the excuse he's used countless times before to explain his various quirks and social inabilities. Something that provokes fear and not pity.

_Ah, that's it, Freak,_ Dr. Madder will say. _You threw steaming hot coffee at a woman because you're a heartless bastard._

_Yes,_ he'll say. _You're finally catching on._

Instead she snorts. His eyes widen and he looks at her. She breaks out into a fit of giggles. Those giggles turn to laughter and people begin to look at her. Her brown eyes twinkle with some joke that's lost on him and he demands that she tell him what's humorous.

"Crap doctor you had, don't you agree?"

"She was one of the most expensive psychiatrists in England," he says. Which is true – Mycroft wouldn't tolerate anything less - but, yes, she had been utter crap.

Anabelle's grin wavers. "Wait. You don't actually believe that her diagnosis was correct, do you?"

"Of course I do," he snaps. He's not sure if this is just because his lie has become, over the years, reflexive, or if he really does believe it, now. "I don't need a psychiatrist to illuminate the obvious, anyway. It's quite apparent what I am."

"I think you're someone who really misses their home," Dr. Madder says softly, and puts her hand over his, "and maybe you're having a hard time coping with that."

He snatches his hand away like her touch burns. It practically does. Or, at least, makes him feel claustrophobic. He stands.

"I'm fine," he spits, and the tube slows, coming to a halt. He stalks out the exit before she can follow, getting off at the wrong stop. He doesn't care. He knows what's going to happen before it does; plans for it. Wants it, almost. To forget his indignation, his humiliation.

He makes it up the steps of the station, to fresh air, before he completely loses his grasp. Then everything becomes a long, dissociative blur. The pavement seems to float above him, or perhaps he's floating above it. Maybe everything is melting together, mixing like swirls of colored paint. The voices that pass him are disconnected from bodies. He's stumbling amongst a horde of muttering specters, stumbling for hours and hours, until his shoes have split apart and his toes are bleeding. Finally he collapses against a pole on a street corner, feeling weak. He doesn't have a coat. Berkeley is cold, with its drafty micro-climates; he feels goose bumps creeping along his skin. He shivers.

"You lost, kid?" A single voice manages to be heard over all the nonsensical chattering that Sherlock is processing. He pulls his head up, forces his eyes open. A woman in her mid-sixties is standing in front of him, smoking a… He sniffs. Smoking a joint.

"Yes," he says, alarmed when his accent wavers, his English pronunciation revealed. He clears his throat and launches into a Norwegian accent again, and she's so high that she doesn't notice the difference. "Could you help me find my way to my hotel?"

"Of course, kid," she says sympathetically. She reminds him, somehow, of Mrs. Hudson, even though Mrs. Hudson would never walk the streets braless, and the thought of her huffing away at a joint is absurd. "Here, take my arm, you're not looking so good. And bear with me. I'm high out of my mind right now."

She laughs and, once he loosely grasps her arm, begins walking.

"Wait," he says. "You don't know the address."

"Oh yeah," she says. "Well, what is it?"

He's too disoriented to remember, but he thinks to take out his phone; his brother texted him the address so that he and Dr. Madder could take a taxi to it from the plane yesterday.

"Mm, nice hotel," the woman sighs when she hears the address. "Where you from, kid? Germany?"

"Norway," he says.

"Ah, shit. Gotta be cold in Norway," she says. She talks endlessly for blocks and blocks. He wonders whether she's too out of it to navigate through the city, but she insists that she's a Berkeley native. She knows where she's going. Her garrulousness doesn't irritate him, although under normal circumstances it would. Right now it grounds him. Keeps him stuck to reality.

* * *

He must have been walking longer than he'd thought; he hadn't noticed that the sky is dark until he enters his hotel room, and finds Dr. Madder sleeping on her bed. He treads lightly, not wanting to wake her and hear her accusations, and he finds a pair of Sigerson's flamboyant pajamas in his suitcase. Dr. Madder, he sees, has already unpacked her things and folded them neatly into the drawers of the hotel dresser. She had tried to wait up for him; the hotel room's Bible is on the bedside table. She'd gotten bored of organizing her things, left one unpacked suitcase on Sherlock's bed, and tried to read the book of Genesis. Hadn't gotten far. Next to the Bible, cold room service is waiting for him. Looks like lasagna with a side of broccoli.

Sherlock almost thinks that this is a kind gesture, Dr. Madder ordering food for him, until he remembers that she probably did it out of pity. Disgusted, he switches off the light and makes to crawl into bed without eating. He picks up the suitcase, but quickly realizes it's too hard to be luggage. He strokes his fingers across it; he knows what it is, already. Would recognize it anywhere.

Heart hammering in his ears, his fingers find the two silver, metal snaps in the dark. He opens the case, feels the plush lining, runs his fingers over four, stranded strings. He picks up the violin. He holds it in his hands, feeling its lightweight balance. It's not _his_ violin, not his Stradivarius, but it is _a_ violin. One of high quality.

Dr. Madder didn't get this violin after the police station. That doesn't make sense. She'd taken time to unpack all her clothes, read, eat a proper meal. Going from her breathing, she's been asleep for hours already. There wouldn't have been time to go out and buy an expensive violin. Which means that she bought this before, while Sherlock was struggling at the bakery.

But how had she known to…?

Paganini Caprice No. 24. He'd been tapping his fingers to it yesterday, in the hotel room. Had she noticed? Had she really been that observant?

Sherlock feels strangely flattered. He feels a funny flutter in his stomach, isn't quite sure why. With no further hesitation (any concern of not waking Dr. Madder doesn't cross his mind in his eagerness), he hoists his new violin into his left arm. Finds the bow, tucked into the case. Flips it in his hands once, and drags it, slow and steady, across the strings.

_Aaah._ The sound that quavers from the instrument is a release. He breathes into it, feeling his way through the new instrument. He plays random notes for several minutes. Not music, quite. Allows the notes to float through the air haphazardly, stumbling into each other with no rhythm, all colors of chaos, like his walk through the city. They're lost, unbound, ungrounded, dizzying but exhausted. He pours his entire night into the violin and then, once he's gotten it all out, he launches into Paganini Caprice No. 24.

The feeling he gets is a less potent form of right when he solves a case, and all the facts have abruptly pieced together in his mind; the perfect puzzle, complete. It's when logic clicks and he's offered a glimpse through the lens of lucidity. It's like being God, just for a little while.

When he ends the piece, he practically wants to weep with the catharsis he feels. It's all been building up for weeks and weeks, and all he needed was this, just this, just this bow in his hands, just these notes sounding out, each a confirmation that he is here, he is real, he is -

"You're great," Dr. Madder says from her bed, voice laden with sleep. "Best 3 A.M. wakeup call I've ever had."

He's in such a blissful mood that he's willing to put aside how angry he is with her, how much he dreads the coming morning, when she will insist that they find him a therapist, or when she tries to get him to talk about feelings he doesn't have words to describe.

He nearly says it.

"Thank you," he nearly says, and not just for the compliment. For the violin, too. Hell, for the cold meal on the bedside table.

"Th – " he begins.

"Sh," she says. "I've changed my mind. I'm not awake after all. I'm sleeping and I haven't heard a thing. Good night, Sigerson."

"Good night," he says instead, a bit relieved.

He plays a couple more pieces, most random and unfinished, until a hotel guest in the next room begins to knock on their wall. Then Sherlock tucks his new instrument into its case and sets it lovingly on the floor. He crawls into bed, feeling strangely relaxed for someone who had a horrible day.

"And Sherlock?" Dr. Madder speaks up again. Before he can answer, she says, "Sh, sh. I'm really still asleep. So don't answer, or I might wake up. But I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. About making you go to the bakery. If it helps, I honestly thought it'd be good for you. But that doesn't make what I did okay. You're an adult and I will never make you do something against your will again. I hadn't realized I was pushing you into that so forcefully, but now I understand."

Sherlock doesn't answer, just listens. And he can barely do that, because he's exhausted and already drifting off to sleep. His mind is wonderfully muddled and slow, like it's running through water. In fact, it isn't until she finishes speaking that he realizes she called him Sherlock.

* * *

**Notes:** I apologize for the inevitable inaccuracies with the Latin. Sherlock's father should basically be asking him if he's okay, and Sherlock should be confirming that he is. Thanks so much for reading, and constructive criticism is always welcome!


	9. Dorm Room

He types at his blog the next morning, a coffee mug beside his laptop. He tells John, in Sigerson's embarrassing narrative style (LOL 3), about his awful walk through Berkeley. Then, because it _is_ a fashion blog he's running, he writes about a thin pair of leathery shoes he had seen on many feet in the city.

_Too flimsy by far, no good for clubbing,_ he types. This blogging thing is getting easier. Dr. Madder is sitting across the hotel table, sipping her own coffee. She hasn't said a word. Clearly wants to say something. Wants to discuss the Asperger's, the possibility that he has the illness – no. No, no. She's probably already decided, he's already hopelessly nailed down as an "Aspie" in her head. The thought is so painful that, eventually, he's forced to stop typing and says, "You have questions."

_What's it like to be socially clueless? Why can't you control your little freak-outs? Can I call you "Aspie" now? _

He waits for it all.

She looks up, seeming surprised at being addressed.

"Yes, I do," she says.

"Go on," Sherlock says impatiently.

"Did Jim have a funeral?"

He pauses, but only for a second. "Moriarty?" he says.

"Mr. Moriarty, yes. Jimmy. James. Jim. Him. That guy. Did he get a funeral?" she asks.

"I'm not sure. Is it relevant to the Sasaki Code?" he asks.

"Oh, no. I was just curious," she says. "How's the blog going?"

He ignores this; she can check his blog updates any time she wants. He says, "Shall I text Mycroft and ask?"

"If you'd like." She shrugs.

A few minutes later, he receives an answer:

**8:09 A.M.**:_ Moran got to Moriarty's body before we could; it was removed from the hospital. We have been unable to find it. _

Ugh. Mycroft's minions. Incompetent as always.

"He probably wouldn't have wanted a funeral," Dr. Madder decides when she sees the text. "Probably thought funerals were boring. An orgy in his name would have worked, though."

Sherlock is sorely tempted to further inquire about her relationship with Moriarty, but he refrains, if only because she's refraining from mentioning the Asperger's. She'll mention it soon, of course. But at least he's ready now. She's just handed him his defense.

_Time to discuss Asperger's, Sherly,_ she'll say, patronizing.

_How about that Jimmy, Dr. Madder? Did you know him for long?_

Yes. That will work.

She keeps silent for the rest of the morning, at least. Once he sips the last of his coffee he shuts his laptop and rises. Reaches for his violin beside the bed, trying not to lean on his toes too much (they're still blistered from his walk). He cranks out a couple of discordant tunes; strings of notes that clank into each other, making the ears wince. He likes, sometimes, for the notes not to go together quite right; he's never had a proper respect for rhythm and the like. Violins were made to be mirrors, not paintings; the difference is that the former isn't always aesthetic.

Dr. Madder doesn't complain about his clashing chords. He used to have to soothe John with a couple of John's favorite pieces, on nights when he felt like playing very badly. Apparently Dr. Madder doesn't need that type of compensation. Convenient.

"Sigerson," she says around noon, breaking into his reverie. He turns to her, setting his bow on his lap.

"Yes?"

"We need to go back to UC Berkeley today," she says. "The library was where I spent most of my time, but while I was developing the computer code there I also – "

"You left hints of the Sasaki Code elsewhere," he interrupts, having anticipated this. "This university _was_ your home for a number of years, after all. Where? Your dorm room?"

She grins. "Yes, very good. It's already fairly hidden, but I'd like to be safe…"

He's about to ask what, precisely, is already fairly hidden, but she interrupts, "With which are you more comfortable: Matches or axes? Or maybe just a scraper, if you're feeling delicate."

He raises his eyebrows. "I won't make a decision until I get the particulars of my mission."

"As you wish," she says, and sets her own empty coffee mug on the table. "Regardless, we'll have to stop at a hardware store first. I'm ready when you are."

* * *

What would the dorm room of a blossoming genius look like? Sherlock's had been a confused smorgasbord: his table had been layered with microscopes and beakers; his shelves stacked with everything from Nietzsche to Goethe, Cicero to Catullus; his walls decorated with anatomy diagrams and taxonomy. Everything about his room had said "Major Undecided." There'd been a time when Sherlock Holmes had been an intellectual curiosity, interests thorough but unfocused. Strange to recall.

Anabelle Madder's old dorm room is nothing like this. Someone else boards here now – it's been years, of course, since Ms. Madder slept between the walls where Sherlock now stands. But the signs of her presence are there. He sees it in the way the wooden floorboards squeak in certain places across the room, a sure sign of an incessant pacer. He sees the faded square where a small cot once rested upon the floor, like the precedent for Dr. Madder's current preference for futons. He can picture her room clearly: Neat and to the point. Nothing but mathematics.

Dr. Madder is standing next to him, hands in her jean pockets. She's frowning and muttering irritably to herself: "…Why did they decide to put a bed in the middle of the room? Takes up all of the space. That's ridiculous, completely inefficient… And why are the students who live here so_messy? _It was never so messy in my day… Not enough stuff to make a mess with…"

"There's wallpaper in this room," Sherlock says. Dr. Madder brings her rant to a halt.

"Yes," she says, turning to him. "Horrible, isn't it? Who picked out the purple wallpaper, do you think? It's oppressive. How is anyone supposed to breathe in a room wrapped in purple flowers?"

Sherlock, who quite misses the wallpaper of 221B, makes no comment to this, but continues to his point: "I caught glimpses of other dorm rooms while we walked up here. They all have uniform peach-colored walls. Painted."

"Yes. I wanted white while I boarded here, but peach was better than _this."_ She gestures to the wallpaper.

Wallpaper. Lots of fond memories regarding wallpaper. In the Before John days, Sherlock had once caught a serial killer with a proclivity for old women. The police hadn't suspected it was murder; they'd dimly thought that old women dying was suddenly becoming a trend across London. No one but Sherlock had noticed that all of the old women died in rooms with _wallpaper._ It was only once Sherlock insisted to Lestrade that someone rip off the wallpaper in one of the victim's houses that the signs of the murder were revealed. Wallpapering a house to cover up a murder: As funny as it is ineffective.

"What's beneath the wallpaper, Dr. Madder?" Sherlock asks, looking around the room. "Where is it hidden?"

Dr. Madder frowns, but after a moment she points to the wall across from the bed. It's windowless, but has a small bookshelf leaning against it.

"That's where it took me," she says.

"Where what took you?" Sherlock asks, approaching the wall. He pushes the bookshelf away, careful not to move anything; the students who board here now are in class, won't return for several hours. Best to leave little evidence of Sherlock and Dr. Madder's presence.

"The obsession," she says. "I didn't eat for five days, didn't drink water for eighteen hours. When the idea for the Sasaki Code first came to me, I forgot about everything else. I was consumed. So, naturally, it seemed frivolous to stop and look for paper. And with no one around to hand me a notebook…"

"…The wall seemed a perfectly optimal tool for catching all your thoughts," Sherlock finishes. He knows that lust for an idea, the drive that is the farthest a human being can get from primitive. It is an ecstasy, a type of intellectual mania that few individuals could even hope to experience. He feels a certain kind of respect for her. He only knows one other person, besides himself and her, who could become so obsessive. But that man had been insane.

Together, Anabelle and Sherlock spend time tearing and scraping off the wallpaper of the dorm room. They scratch and rip their fingernails, but are too intent upon their mission to give much notice. Sherlock's spent so many years aiming to discover clues, and now he's working to cover them up. Must hide the marks of Dr. Madder's initial obsession with the computer code. He thinks of Moran, or perhaps Gruner, coming into her old dorm room, looking for evidence. No reason why they'd let wallpaper stop them. Need to make sure there's nothing for them to find.

Once the old, peach-colored paint of the wall is revealed, Sherlock and Dr. Madder step back to absorb their work. The evidence has been revealed: Mathematical equations have been scrawled all over the wall. Sherlock envisions a young Ms. Madder, working from her height of 5'8", reaching up over her own head in her enthusiasm, so that the numbers are, from Sherlock's height, at eye level. She worked from the right, vertically, in the way traditional Japanese is written. The work starts out hesitantly. Plenty of things crossed out. The math is tentative, simple for someone adept in discreet probability. Then she delved further, using her own mathematician's shorthand, becoming more explorative. His eyes move slowly across the wall, until the numbers become too complex for him to understand. He sees that her hand moved quicker the farther along she went, turning from a girlish print to a nearly-illegible scrawl. He can hear the years-old thoughts that once raced through her head: _This is possible, isn't it? This code, it's mathematically feasible – I could make this._ He feels her beating heart, her rush of adrenaline, her salivating mouth, all the symptoms of that intellectual lust he knows so well. He hears her shallow breathing, and imagines how she must have heard it too, how it must have made her aware of her own solitude. One steady stream of inhales and exhales, echoing throughout the mostly-empty room. He knows she must have made believe that she wasn't alone, that someone was behind her, watching, witnessing the genius being made. He knows that feeling. Has a theory that a lonely genius was the first to imagine an omnipresent god.

Yes. Anabelle Madder snatched the first inklings of something wonderful in this room. He can see the Inspiration like it's tangible.

He realizes that he's been silent for a considerable length of time when Dr. Madder, very gently, takes hold of his hand. Slides her thumb across his wrist, interlaces her fingers with his. He draws in a breath and pulls away.

"We need to destroy this," she says.

He doesn't want to. This is beautiful. This is like the art Mummy is always so moved by. He never appreciated the paintings she collected, but he appreciates this. He even appreciates paintings, now, in a way. Understands the artist's urge to replicate. He wants to replicate this, wants to preserve it forever. This is evidence that someone else in the world – someone close to his age, living in his era_ – someone standing right beside him –_ has experienced his same type of intellectual joy. Looking at these crossed out numbers that he can only partly make sense of, he realizes how not-alone he is. The average human memory on visual matters is only 62% accurate, but he needs to be above average. Needs to remember_all_ of this, _precisely_ as it is.

"Let's do so," is all he says. It doesn't dawn on him to tell her what he's feeling, and she doesn't seem to suspect that he's experiencing a revelation. He pulls his scraper out of his pocket and presses the blade against the wall. It's over the top equations, the first ones written in that neat, feminine handwriting.

Across the wall, at a random part of the number mural, Dr. Madder begins to scrape off the paint and writing.

"Stop," Sherlock commands. She looks up.

"Problem?" she says.

"Let me do this on my own." He needs to scrape everything away precisely. Must do it top to bottom, right to left, just as it was written. Must absorb every intricate detail of this genius and never, ever forget it.

"But it'd be faster if – "

"Please," he says. _Please be like John and always do what I say if I say "please."_

For some reason, she smiles and, to his relief, steps back.

"Alright," she says, holding up her scraper as if in surrender. "As you like, Sigerson."

"Thank you," he says, and begins his work.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Dr. Madder asks. It's hours later, and they're back at the hotel room. Sherlock is standing by the window with his violin balanced on one shoulder, a pen between his lips, lined paper on the window sill. He misses the convenience of his folding music stand and music sheets, but the instrument currently touching his skin makes up for it.

"Composing," he says. His accent sounds even more ridiculous when he's speaking with a pen between his lips. Dr. Madder doesn't laugh, though. And, even better, she doesn't ask what he's composing. He's not sure how to explain that he's converting the numbers in his head – the ones she'd once written on her dorm wall – into music notes, and turning it into a song. It might be something she'd enjoy, now that he thinks of it; a type of cryptography, although perhaps crude by her standards. Yet it doesn't dawn on him to ask her to join him in the effort, or to inquire as to whether or not she has any knowledge of music. He continues on alone, and she continues working on her laptop. In silence they proceed into the night.


	10. Last Day in California

It's their last full day in California, and they have one task remaining. Thanks to Sherlock, U.C. Berkeley's records now have Anabelle down as a history major instead of a mathematics one. The only issue is that a diploma, declaring her true major, rests in her home in Berkeley. They need to find it, and dispose of it.

Anabelle rings her own doorbell while Sherlock looks around the front yard. He's surprised that she would own an house like this; its shingles are falling apart, the white paint chipping. Bikes litter the yellow-grassed front lawn. And when the door opens, the reeking scent of feline urine gushes from the house. Sherlock crinkles his nose.

"Yo, it's Madder!" A boy, no older than twenty-three, comes out of the house. He wraps a skinny arm around Anabelle and, even though he _stinks,_Anabelle hugs him back, laughing. From one quick glance Sherlock counts no less than a dozen piercings on the boy, including the eyebrow, and three tattoos. Also a small, disappointing Mohawk that makes Sherlock take a repulsed step back.

This is not going to work. He cannot possibly go inside this filthy, punk-ridden house.

No. No. He has to. Important for their mission. It's like working with the homeless network. He can disinfect himself afterward. And he's not Sherlock Holmes right now, anyway, he's Sigerson Bøler.

"Hello, Silver," Anabelle says pleasantly. "Do you mind if my friend and I stay here for a short while today?"

The boy named Silver (cognomen, obviously, likely based on the artificial color of his hair) takes a look at Sherlock. He sees Sigerson and says, "Duuuuude. Nice shoes." He gives a thumbs-up, seeming deeply impressed by hideous, balance-impairing platform heels, apparently. Sherlock scowls and looks away before receiving a punch to the arm by Anabelle.

"He's just in a bad mood because we're leaving Cali soon," she explains quickly. Sherlock remembers his persona and tries to wear a smile.

"I understand completely." Silver nods gravely. "Come in, come in."

To Sherlock's horror, they follow Silver into the house, down a hallway. The walls have been spray-painted with obscenities and political messages, and the smell of cat urine pervades ever more strongly.

"How many cats do you _own?"_ Sherlock asks. He deduces at least six.

Silver turns around, gives him a weird look. "What do you mean? We don't own any cats."

Sherlock shivers, but doesn't press the topic. They enter a living room, and Sherlock pauses in the doorway. Three other punk rockers are all sitting on the floor. (They have a couch, but it looks like someone's gone through it with an axe, so that the poor thing is regurgitating stuffing and springs.) When they spot Anabelle, they all stand and start cheering, greeting her too loudly.

"MADDERRRR!" one shouts.

"No one's madder than the Madders!" sings another, like it's a phrase that's been said many times before, and he gives Anabelle a high-five.

"Except for you," she laughs. "You guys have completely destroyed my house!"

Three of the punks pause, and Silver looks away, whistling. Finally a green-haired man says, "You can keep our deposit."

She laughs. "Alright, then."

"You want some beer or something?" one asks, and Anabelle says, "That's alright, my friend and I have work to do." Then, she says lowly to Sherlock, "Eat _nothing_ from their fridge."

Taking his hand, she leads him out of the living room and through the kitchen. Sherlock quickly sees what she meant: he can't imagine anything in their fridge being edible. John may have complained about Sherlock's kitchen experiments, but they look quite sterile and contained when he spots the mold in the sink, and the stacks of plates all over the counters. He's stepping on pizza boxes as well, and the floor is completely hidden.

"The diploma's in here somewhere," Anabelle says. "This shouldn't take too long. Sorry about my renters' mess."

"221B wasn't so much better," Sherlock admits. "It just smelled cleaner. And its occupants were always hygienic, of course."

Anabelle opens up a broken drawer, which collapses to the floor, making her jump. The drawer is filled with papers, coins, paperclips, and an assortment of junk. Sherlock frowns.

"Would you like assistance, Anabelle?" he offers. She freezes, and for a moment he doesn't understand why. Then she says, "'Anabelle'?"

"Yes," he says. "I thought that since..." _Since you once called me Sherlock, I could reciprocate._

"Anabelle suits me. I hear it very little nowadays. And yes - assistance. That's why I brought you," she says, chirpily, and gestures to a second drawer. He begins to go through it.

It takes them the afternoon, during which Sherlock must cope with the punks coming in and out of the kitchen for beers and cold pizza, but eventually the diploma is found. And, underneath that, another one. Anabelle picks it up.

"It's my brother's," she says softly. The diploma was issued by the NYU. Luke Madder was, in fact, a history major.

"We should get rid of this, if we want your brother to look like the true cryptographer," Sherlock says. "Shall we burn them both at the stove, or…?"

"Yes," Anabelle says faintly. Sherlock reaches for her diploma, which she relinquishes, but Luke's won't budge from her grasp.

"Anabelle," Sherlock says sternly. Hard to sound stern when you're a Norwegian gay man.

She doesn't move, just keeps staring at her brother's diploma. Sherlock counts to ten, giving her time, and then he snatches it from her. Turns to the stove, lights the gas. Sets the papers to fire. The flames lick at them greedily, charring the papers to black. Anabelle stares at him and he curses his own impatient fingers, his lack of restraint, even as the papers continue to burn. He waits for retribution, angry with himself.

"I needed you to do that," Anabelle says finally, and slumps against the counter, looking exhausted. "Can't afford to hesitate. Have things to get done."

"Yes, precisely," Sherlock says, glad someone understands. It doesn't make her look any happier, though. She stares at the flaming papers.

"You are sad," Sherlock observes.

"Yes, I am. Very much so."

Sherlock frowns. She's not looking at him; too intent on the flames. He gives himself time to think. What is it people do in these situations? Friends comfort each other, yes? And they are friends, yes? Or something like it. He's comforted John before, but that was different. John is different, he needed different things. Sherlock reaches out to Anabelle, his hand hovering inches from her back, hesitant. Is this the sort of comfort women seek? Touching? Is this the sort of comfort Anabelle seeks? He tries it. He presses her hand against her back, lightly. Ready to snatch it away at a moment's notice.

Oh no.

Oh no – what has he done?

The moment Sherlock touches her back, Anabelle dissolves into tears. The sound is earsplitting. For an absurd millisecond Sherlock thinks he vastly underestimated his own strength, and broke her spine, because she collapses against the counter with her hands over her eyes, nearly screaming. Her shoulders shake and her entire body heaves and, if this can be considered crying, then it is the most violent form of the act Sherlock has ever witnessed. Anabelle's noises – wordless shouts, like something wounded and broken – echo throughout the house. He hears the punks in the living room become silent.

Sherlock pulls his hand back, but Anabelle turns around, revealing a tear-drenched face, and grabs his arm. Clings to it, too tightly, hurting him. He stumbles forward when she yanks the poor limb, simultaneously leaning into her while trying to move away. It's all very awkward and uncouth.

"I f-feel like s-s-something is c-clawing at my in-insides," she cries out, shaking her head. "T-this is r-r-ridiculous, but I never realized t-that someone c-could miss someone e-else so – so – so much. I'm_ breaking."_

"You look whole to me," Sherlock offers unhelpfully, having no idea what else to say. She laughs, which he thinks might be a good sign.

"Looks aren't everything," she says, and she wipes her eyes, releasing his arm. He rubs it, as it's sore.

"Wow," she says, trembling, but regaining control. Tears are still falling, but she's just sniffing now. Not shouting. It's an improvement. "I guess I needed to do that… Release of ACTH stress hormones and all. Okay. Well. That's over with." She laughs. It's a weak, nervous sound.

"It's alright," he says. "Actually, no. It's fine. It's all fine."

The words are lost on her, of course, but she goes, "I know it is. No shame in emotion."

She's not embarrassed at all. He's bewildered by that. She should be, surely. She just experienced something raw and powerful in front of a man she's only known for a few weeks. Too soon to reveal your own humanity.

The punks come into the kitchen.

"Madder?" Silver says hesitantly.

"The gay guy messing with you?" another asks, giving Sherlock a look that makes him bristle indignantly.

"I am _not_ gay!" he says in his best Norwegian accent. A moment goes by, during which the punk looks from Sherlock's dead serious face, to his platform shoes, and gapes at the discrepancy. Anabelle cracks up.

"I'm fine guys, completely," she says. "And sorry if we got ashes in your stove."

"Don't worry about it. The number one rule in this house is that we don't give a shit about cleaning!" Silver says. Anabelle raises her eyebrows.

"Don't ever say that to your landlady. Life lesson, Silver." She takes Sherlock's hand and steers him out of the kitchen. "Shall we return to hotel? Our work here is done."

"Yes," Sherlock says, and suddenly has to stifle a yawn. "I feel exhausted, actually."

"Really?" Anabelle tilts her head. "Aren't you used to running all over London?"

He shoots her a dirty look. "I haven't had to do that in a while."

"Alright, then," she says. "Goodbye, Silver, Paul, Scott, Chris. Sigerson here needs a nap."

And with that, they take off, back to San Francisco for the last time.


	11. New York City

The next evening, after getting a subway ride from the airport, Sherlock and Anabelle stand outside the door of Anabelle's childhood apartment. "Apartment" is the humble word for it – the multistoried home is located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and would be impressive to Sherlock if his own childhood home had not been much grander.

Anabelle looks at Sherlock and says, "You ready?"

"Of course," he says. She rings the doorbell. Sherlock hears footsteps approaching; he can tell by the sound of the steps that they're leather dress shoes, fine in quality. Something Italian. The interior flooring of the apartment: Wood, probably bamboo. The door opens.

Sherlock doesn't get a good look at Anabelle's adoptive father before the man rushes forward, bringing the young doctor into his arms.

"Anabelle," he says. "Thank God you're home."

"Professor," Anabelle laughs, "I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine."

But the man doesn't release her, keeps holding her too tightly, rubbing a paternal hand on her back. Sherlock looks at his face.

Mid-sixties. Balding redhead, will go gray within next five years. Formerly a smoker. Imperfect posture from hours stooped over a writing desk. Right-handed, steady grip; skilled drawer. Wearing an Armani suit, two-buttoned, beige in color, sharp. Indicative of wealth, of course – but also of conceit? No, Sherlock thinks not. Nothing conceited in this man's bleeding sentimentality toward Anabelle.

"Ah, Sigerson Bøler, it's a pleasure," says the Professor, finally releasing his daughter. He puts out his right hand, gives Sherlock's a firm, quick shake. The man's eyes are bright, twinkling. He's likely laughing at Sherlock's (Sigerson's) outfit of the day – a pink dress, with mismatching trousers beneath it. (Sherlock had insisted on the trousers.)

"Likewise," says Sherlock, stiffly.

"Come in, both of you."

Anabelle and Sherlock follow him inside. As soon as they're in, the Professor apparently believes he can speak freely, because he says, "Impressive accent, Mr. Holmes. And I see you've endured my daughter's…thoroughness."

Sherlock tracks the man's gaze. Yes. He's looking at the dress. Grimacing, Sherlock returns the gaze.

"All in the name of self-preservation," Sherlock says, still not letting his accent slide. Constant paranoia: Moriarty's minions, everywhere, seeping through the cracks of doors and peering through the walls.

"It's alright," Anabelle says. "My father's apartment is safe."

"How can you be certain?" Sherlock asks. Anabelle and the Professor share a glance, but neither answer him.

"Refreshments are being prepared as we speak," the Professor says. Obvious change of subject. Bad liar. (Like John.)

"Oh!" Anabelle smiles. "Is Sylvia here?"

"She is – " The Professor can't finish his sentence, as Anabelle has already gone dashing off to what is presumably the kitchen. Sherlock takes a moment to look around. The apartment is spacious, with clean, fluffy white carpeting and windows that, during the day, would let all the sunlight in. Sherlock sees a spiral staircase leading to the second floor.

The Professor shrugs and says, by way of explanation, "Anabelle was always particularly close to the cook. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I'm Professor Madder. You can call me the Professor."

Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

"And if that doesn't suit you," says the Professor quickly, "then the Prof. Although that makes you sound sort of lazy, doesn't it? Dr. Madder would be correct as well, I suppose, but that would just get confusing. I'm too old for Matt, but Matthew might – "

"The Professor will serve," Sherlock interrupts. The Professor grins.

"Still using the accent, Mr. Holmes? I assure you, it's unnecessary."

"How do you know?" Annoyingly, the Professor chuckles every time Sherlock uses it.

"Because there is not even the slightest possibility that anyone has installed cameras, or recording devices, in this house. We are also not being watched."

"How do you _know?"_ he repeats.

"Jimmy Moriarty once gave me a promise that this house would stay safe. He rarely makes promises, but when he does, he keeps them."

"His minions might not," Sherlock points out.

"His allies never disobey his orders," says the Professor. "Jimmy has always been good at getting people to follow him." He sighs.

"Yes, but would they follow him even after death?" A moment passes, during which Sherlock takes account of the Professor's expression – widened eyes, parted mouth – and says, _"Oh._ You didn't know, did you?"

"Jimmy is…dead?" the Professor says. "Are you sure?"

"He shot himself in the mouth in front of me," Sherlock says flatly. "It was fairly convincing evidence, I'd say."

"Suicide." The Professor's lips form a hard frown. "That's not surprising." His words echo Anabelle's. "Still, it's a shame… Such a wasted life…"

"And what role did you play in that life, Professor?" Sherlock questions. He regards the man before him suspiciously. If he's someone Moriarty promised to keep safe, then he's obviously dangerous. Some type of ally, likely aided Moriarty in one of his crimes before. Perhaps this is the man who helped Moriarty establish stable connections to the crime syndicate in America?

"I was his camp counselor," says the Professor, "when he was 12."

Sherlock blinks.

"It was a camp for extraordinarily bright children," the Professor explains, then smiles proudly. "I started it with another NYU professor. It was a place where brains were the only thing that mattered. Full scholarship to any child with remarkable intellectual abilities. I remember Jimmy. Fresh from Dublin, no money, no friends, and wishing he had no father." He frowns. "He lived with me for eight weeks, and somehow I managed to…make an impression on him."

"How so?" Sherlock asks, but in that moment Anabelle and a stout Hispanic woman, presumably the cook, enter the living room. They both bear plates of small sandwiches.

"I'm famished," Anabelle says. "Care to eat, Sherlock?"

"Did you know your father was once Moriarty's camp counselor?" Sherlock blurts.

Anabelle looks at him. "Yes, of course I knew. I went to the camp too."

She sets down her plate on the glass coffee table and reaches for a sandwich, but Sherlock pushes it out of her hand. "And you simply _neglected_to tell me that you were once childhood friends with the man who tried to make me kill myself?"

"Oh dear," the Professor frowns, "he did _what?"_

Anabelle gives her father a dark look. "He was completely crazy by the end, Professor." But the Professor isn't listening. "I should have done something," he's whispering. "I should have gotten him help a long time ago, a decade ago – "

"It was too late for him the day he was born. There's nothing you could have done. And hey, chin up, old sport," she says, smiling softly. "You raised two entirely excellent kids, remember."

The Professor manages a sad, small smile. "Any news from Luke?"

"None," she says. She turns to Sherlock. "He was never my friend in camp. Mr. Moriarty has never had _friends. _And he actually creeped me out quite a lot, thank you very much. Maybe I didn't want to talk about it."

Sherlock opens his mouth to say something, but for once no words come out.

"Come on," Anabelle says bitterly. "Grab a sandwich and come upstairs. We have work to do."

* * *

An hour later, Sherlock is told to retire in Luke Madder's old bedroom. Although he slept the entire plane ride, he still feels exhausted. Anabelle and him plan to spend two to three weeks in New York City: Just long enough to conceal any signs of her early interest in math, and alter Luke Madder's NYU records, making _him_ the math major. As Sherlock walks down the hall to Luke's bedroom, he wonders what it will look like. Anabelle Madder's childhood bedroom had been much like her living room in Sakae-mura: Books, and nothing more. Luke's will be similar, probably. He did, after all, travel and keep Anabelle Madder safe for ten years. He's obviously brilliant.

Sherlock disappoints himself by entering one of the most ordinary bedrooms he's ever seen. There's a bunk bed, where the boy must have once hosted sleepovers (Do kids actually do that? Sherlock isn't sure.), and on the dresser is a whole cluster of basketball trophies. C.D.s take up the bulk of the room, stacked in holders that line the wall. Everything is so trite, so unfathomably _dull._ Sherlock doesn't have to look to know that there's a stash of Playboy under the bed. Luke Madder's bedroom is filled with boyish rubbish, and its only redeeming quality is a single bookshelf lined with tomes on history: _The Search For Modern China_ by Jonathan D. Spence, _The History of Western Philosophy_ by Bertrand Russell, etc.

Sherlock finds himself wondering what John's bedroom would have looked like at 18 years of age. Would it have been like this? (Well, minus the basketball trophies; his height would make him awful at that.) Pedestrian, with just the tiniest glimpse of something bordering on interesting? Sherlock imagines so.

In fact – yes. He's positive. He's practically standing in John's bedroom, right now. Inexplicably, he feels a surge of warmth toward Luke Madder, wherever he is, regardless of whether he's currently alive or dead. He pulls on some of Sigerson's pajamas and curls beneath Luke's blue comforter. He's eager for sleep.

Tomorrow, Sherlock Holmes will have to clean those history books out of Luke's bedroom, and replace them with some of Anabelle's math tomes. And he'll have to clear the books out of Anabelle's bedroom, too, and decorate her room with whatever it is that a normal 18 year-old girl would decorate her room with. Furniture, for starters. Something pretty.

Sherlock Holmes can, of course, think of multiple things at once, so even while he's mentally decorating Anabelle's bedroom, he's still ruminating on Luke. What was he like? How could it be that someone clever enough to create false identities, to build the labyrinth that is Sasaki Facilities, is so entirely normal? Luke Madder agreed to pose as a cryptographer, and now he's paying the price of having taken that risk. What makes an ordinary person like him do something like that? He dropped out of graduate school to travel the world with his sister – _why?_

Sherlock doesn't understand. And trying to solve all of the Madders' mysteries makes him feel heavy, groggy. Like he's made of lead and very, very ready for sleep. He rests his head against Luke's soft pillows, smelling detergent and freshly-laundered cotton, and drifts off.


	12. Jimmy

"Really clever, entirely thorough," Sherlock says, rubbing his hands together approvingly. He and Anabelle stand in the doorway of Luke Madder's room, which is now unnervingly similar to Sherlock's at 18, with all the signs of sure-to-blossom genius apparent. They even thought to write math problems on Luke's wall, in a replication of his hand. Anabelle's room, in addition, now looks suitably average. "What's next on our list?"

"Um, actually – " Anabelle begins. Just then, the Professor passes the pair of them on the way to his office.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes, have you finished yet? I finally have a free moment, if you'd like to take a step into my office," he says, giving Sherlock a friendly clap on the back. Sherlock turns to ask him why, precisely, Sherlock would have any reason to 'take a step' into his office, but he's already disappeared down the hallway. Sherlock instead verbalizes his thoughts to Anabelle.

"Why would he want you? I wouldn't know." She releases a nervous laugh, immediately stirring Sherlock's suspicions. "But the Professor rarely does things without reason, so perhaps you should follow him."

"We should continue working, don't you think? What is our next task?" Sherlock asks again.

"Actually," she says, "there isn't any other work to be done."

"None? But you said we'd be staying here for at least a week, perhaps two." Sherlock frowns, then freezes. Oh. _Oh._ "You told your father, didn't you? That I have…" _Aspergers,_ he thinks. "The Professor is a psychologist. He thinks we came here so that we can all discuss my mental health, doesn't he? Wait, no. No. He only invited me into his office, meaning... We came to New York so that he can give me therapy sessions." He spits out the words.

"My father isn't a therapist, Sherlock," Anabelle says slowly. "He's a psychology professor with a… special expertise in dealing with sociopaths. If anyone can recognize Antisocial Personality Disorder, he can. If you're not willing to explore the possibility that you fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, you could at least realize that there's no way you're a sociopath. It was just an offer."

"Well, I decline," Sherlock says shortly.

"But Sherlock – "

"Ah," he hisses softly, "and therein lies the problem. When did you start calling me by my first name? The day you decided I must have Aspergers." He forces out the word. "It was then, was it, that the formalities were stripped away? And why, _Dr. Madder,_ should that be? Maybe because an autistic man is no different from a child to you? You thought you could lead me to New York without telling me why, but I have no intention of being compliant."

"Sherlock, stop it," she says, frustration beginning to leak through her voice. "I don't think of you as a child at all. Rather, you're the most painfully stubborn man I've ever known. I knew that if I told you about why we were coming here, you'd never get on the plane."

"Because I'm not interested in speaking to a _professional."_

"And why not? Why are you so reluctant to help yourself? Don't you see that you need some type of – "

"Therapy? Because I'm what, Dr. Madder? Eccentric? Heartless? Focused? Emotionless?"

"Because you're lonely," she says. "I read Sigerson Bøler's blog, Sherlock. You update three times a day. As soon as John is out of jail, should you somehow get him to read your website, he will have _a lot_ to catch up on. And I just thought that this might help you with your issues socializing."

"You thought it gave you an excuse not to inform me of our exact itinerary," Sherlock says, "which is exactly why I have avoided a diagnosis. If my clients thought I fall on the autism spectrum, they would cease to take me seriously. I have always theorized this. Thank you for providing me with the evidence." Sherlock sighs. Quite suddenly, the fight is drained out of him. He feels heavy, exhausted, like he's just tried to run through water. He says, "Get out, Dr. Madder."

"Are… Are you packing?"

"Packing?"

"To go?" she says. "Are you leaving now?"

"No," he blinks, "I'm going to take a nap."

"A nap? _Now?"_

"Yes. Now please, get out," he says. Anabelle looks like she wants to object, but after being accused of treating him like a child, she surrenders. She leaves, letting him slam the door after her. Satisfyingly, he can hear her jump outside, startled by the noise. Then he turns to Luke Madder's bed and collapses.

* * *

"Mr. Holmes?" The Professor pokes his head into the bedroom, his rumbling voice rousing Sherlock. Sherlock groans to consciousness, catching a mouthful of the pillowcase beneath him. "Are you sleeping?"

"Clearly," Sherlock mumbles, taking the pillowcase out of his mouth.

"It's only three o'clock in the afternoon. I'd appreciate it if you could nap later, if you're at all in the mood to start talking. I don't know when I'll next get free time this week. Are you ready for a session?"

"No sessions," Sherlock says sleepily.

"No sessions? But I thought you flew across the country to speak to me?"

Ah. So the Professor thinks he knows. Well, that makes things better, doesn't it? It extinguishes the mental image Sherlock had had of the two laughing at him behind his back. At least he has the respect of one Madder.

"Your daughter neglected to tell me the purpose of our being here, actually," Sherlock says, now truly awake. He turns on his side so that he can look at the Professor standing in the doorway. The Professor does not seem at all taken aback by addressing an adult who refuses to get out of bed.

"She didn't? But she told me that you two talked about everything, and –" he pauses, then finishes tiredly, " – and now I look like a fool for believing her. I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes. She's made me look unprofessional, hasn't she?" And all at once, Sherlock's humiliation vanishes. If the Professor feels like a fool, then Sherlock doesn't have to. "Well, then, if you never knew, I can't imagine you're interested now, are you?"

"Not at all," Sherlock says.

"I'll leave you to sleep, then."

"Yes, that would be – " Sherlock suddenly rolls on his back and jolts up. "Wait." Something has just sparked in his sleep-muddled brain.

"Yes?" The Professor's hand lingers on the doorknob.

"You were Moriarty's camp counselor, yes?"

"I was," he confirms. "Why do you ask?"

"Could you… Could you tell me about that? About him? It's important," Sherlock says.

"Well, under normal circumstances, I would have to refuse… He was a patient of mine, you see. My first and only. It ended in failure, obviously. And normally I would keep that information confidential, but I suppose if the patient is dead, it can do no harm." The Professor walks into the room, closing the door behind him. He pulls up a chair from Luke's desk to the bed. Sherlock lies back down.

"He told me," Sherlock begins, "that I was him."

He expects an immediate denial from the Professor. Instead he says, "And do you see any truth in that?"

"I can't be certain," says Sherlock. "I thought I was willing to do anything to find the intellectual stimulation I need, but I would never _kill myself._ I would never…" _Hurt John._

"Then it sounds like you're not him, to me," says the Professor.

"What was he like?" Sherlock asks, staring at the wall to his side, tracing imaginary patterns in it with his eyes. "Tell me everything."

"Jimmy was…odd," the Professor begins. "But, then, it was a camp for children with superior intellect. They were all odd. He was by no means the oddest. And unlike many of the children there, Jimmy Moriarty did not want for emotional nourishment. His mother was a hardworking, softhearted woman. He was, however, lacking in all else. He was cadaverous in complexion, stooped, thin-limbed and small. His social skills were naught, nor did he, at the time, seem interested in improving them. He preoccupied himself with solitary activities. I have noticed that intellectually-talented youth often spend their time alone, so this was not a concern to me. The concern stemmed instead from his utter unresponsiveness in the face of those who tried to induce conversation in him. Whenever someone spoke to him, he would simply fix a stare on them, and remain wordless. He had disproportionally large eyes, and rather than making him look cute as it would on another child, they gave him a sinister air. Black and fathomless, leaving the impression that some demon was inside him, clawing to get out. A monster blinked through the skin of that boy. But I sound melodramatic, I'm sure."

"No," says Sherlock earnestly. "I've seen them myself."

"Then you understand."

"Yes," he says impatiently. "Continue."

"Well, he was rejected from the camp almost as soon as he entered it."

"He was aggressive?"

"Oh, exceedingly so, but we would not find that out until later. No, it was a matter of bureaucracy, mainly. He scored far too high on the 'psychoticism' section of the Eysenck Personality Test. The other professors worried he could be too dangerous to have around the other children. They were going to send him to a correction facility. In those days, you see, it was believed that children with Conduct Disorder, or children who showed signs of developing Conduct Disorder, could be helped through special programs made for callous children. In fact these programs have proven to be detrimental, as I predicted."

"So you prevented him from going to one. But how did you get him into your camp? Or was it him?" Sherlock thinks suddenly. "Did he intimidate the professors somehow?"

"Oh, no." The Professor chuckles. "The thought of little Jimmy intimidating anyone in those days is laughable. It was me. I take full responsibility for my part in making that monster. I was, in those days, something of a hippie. 'All you need is love' is the line, isn't it? Well, I had that mentality, not realizing, of course, that Jimmy had already been shown plenty of love from his mother. Although he was never permitted into the camp as an official student there, and therefore never given a dorm room for the summer, he was allowed to take classes as a sort of unofficial student. He lived in this house, in the room next to this one, for seven weeks."

"Not eight, meaning he was sent home early," Sherlock states. "Why?"

"It was Luke. Just as he is now, Luke was...a friendly child. He had lived his whole life with his adoptive sister's eccentricities, and so he didn't find Jimmy so strange. He used to speak to Jimmy all of the time. The four of us ate breakfast together each morning, and he would talk ceaselessly to the boy, although Jimmy never responded. Jimmy would stare and stare, with those eyes…" The Professor shivers at the recollection. "It was chilling, but Luke never allowed it to faze him. It was easy to imagine that Jimmy was actually a deaf, he seemed to comprehend so little of what was said. He was always listening, though. And evidently, Luke's attempts at friendship caught Jimmy's interest in the worst of ways.

"Luke would pick Anabelle and Jimmy up from their camp every day. One day, Anabelle stayed late. Jimmy and Luke waited for her out front. According to Luke's testimonials - which I have no reason not to believe - Jimmy eventually made the suggestion that she had gone swimming. He was well aware that the pool was closed at that time, with no lifeguards or adults present, but Luke didn't know better. Jimmy led Luke into the pool area, caught him off guard, and shoved him into the deep end. My son, you see, couldn't swim.

"Fortunately, a professor found the two boys in time. She said that when she arrived, having heard splashes and screaming from across the camp, Jimmy had pulled up a chair to watch. And he was just staring, a spectator as my son struggled… It was, likely, the first time that summer he ever smiled.

"Jimmy never showed remorse. When asked why he tried to drown my son, he answered that he had 'been curious to see what would happen.' He knew, I think, that I would hush up the incident and any subsequent legal action – "

"Hush it up?" Sherlock interrupts. "Why? You were a concerned father, I don't understand."

"'All you need is love.' Or so I thought." A bitter laugh sounds from his lips. "I didn't want Jimmy arrested, the label 'criminal' placed on him so young. I thought that by letting him off the hook, I was giving him a second chance. Needless to say, though, I didn't let him near my children again. He was sent back to Dublin, where the scholarships he had received to attend a prestigious boarding school were taken back. He attended public school instead, and for two years I believed that his weeks in America had had no effect on him."

"But they did," Sherlock says. "You heard from him again, clearly."

"Yes, of course. Two years later, when Jimmy was fourteen – and now going by the name James – I received a call from his mother. Mrs. Moriarty apologized for bothering me, but her son was in critical condition at the hospital, and she had no way to pay for the medical bills. I paid them, of course, but not before getting the truth out of her. She confessed that Jimmy had tried to kill himself. He planned a way that was…bizarre, unusual, and gruesome. Only a genius boy would have been able to come up with the mechanics of it, would have been able to manage all of the logistics involved in what had been, I think, sincerely intended to be his suicide. It was pure luck that it failed.

"I flew to Dublin at once to speak to him. He wouldn't see me while he was in the hospital, so I went to his home instead. And can you guess what I found when I went there?"

Yes, Sherlock knows exactly what he must have found. It seems obvious, considering. The Professor answers his own question before Sherlock can. "I found a tiny version of me. There was Jimmy, fourteen years old in a bespoke suit. His posture was perfected, and his frailty had been replaced by some muscle. He even wore the same brand of cologne I had worn during his summer in my home. It's funny, now, to think about _the_Moriarty, criminal of the century, being impressed by a mere professor. But he was. Of course, I never managed to influence him the way I wanted to. I wanted him to understand the dynamics of a functioning family, the benefits of charity work. Instead, I think, he was impressed by my ability to get people to listen to me. He must have wanted that, and thought wearing suits would give him it. I don't think he ever considered that people listen to me because they _like_ me.

"For someone who had just attempted suicide, he seemed overjoyed to see me. He was proud, I think, of the changes he had made. I got his mother to leave the living room, and sat him down. I was so young and clueless – I had no idea what to say that would convince this boy to climb his way out of depression. But I had brought myself all the way to a grimy flat in Dublin, not to mention the thousands of dollars I'd spent, so clearly I had something to say. I began by complimenting his way of dress. He giggled at me. It was the strangest laugh, Mr. Holmes, like someone possessed. He rolled his head to and fro, just once, and brought his fingers to his lips. His lips curled and his eyes sparked and he leaned forward, and told me, in a whisper, that his way of dress wasn't the only thing that had changed. I said, 'What else has?' He told me that he'd finally learned how to do it. 'Do what?' I asked, although I should have seen it coming. It was a textbook case, after all. 'Hurt people,' he answered.

"With surprisingly little prodding, I got him to tell me all the things he had done in his two years of public school. The way he'd so cleverly – that's his adverb, Mr. Holmes, not mine – hurt his peers, and even some of his teachers. And, finally, he told me about how he… He murdered someone, Mr. Holmes." The Professor closes his eyes. "The swim captain at his school. Carl Powers, I think that was his name. He was someone's son." A moment passes, during which the Professor doesn't move, and Sherlock has the tact to not point out that of course he was someone's son, all boys are. Instead he waits, and soon the Professor continues.

"I sat there and listened. I should have known then that there was no hope for his recovery, none at all. I should have had him arrested, done all in my power to have him tried as an adult in court. He confessed _murder_ to me, Mr. Holmes, and then do you know what he did? He looked at me, earnestly, and he seemed so young in that moment, even younger in his fine clothes. He said, 'You won't tell anyone, will you, Professor?' 'Everything you tell me is confidential.' That's what I said. I should have been tried with him, Mr. Holmes.

"I left that night. I don't know why he thought I wouldn't tell anyone, but he never seemed to fear that I would. And I never did, not until now. I returned to New York City and kept my children under the impression that I had left to teach a class in Europe. I never told them what happened. I should have, I should have warned them, but I didn't."

"You said you made a monster," Sherlock points out.

"And so I did," the Professor answers.

"That's not making a monster, Professor. That's abetting one," says Sherlock. He's not trying to comfort the distressed man, he's searching for something that seems to be missing. "You're a professor, you'd be precise with your diction. How did you _make_ Moriarty, Professor?"

The Professor sighs and goes back to closing his eyes. "It was that same night. After hearing about Carl Powers, I told Jimmy that true gentlemen never hurt others. Christ, I was such a FOOL!" The old man slams his arm out, hitting nothing, punching air. He takes a deep breath, huffs it out. Sherlock puts his fingertips together, remaining calm. A moment passes and Sherlock can sense the Professor's heartbeat returning to normal. "My apologies, Mr. Holmes."

"Just continue," say Sherlock. The Professor does.

"I…I made a joke. I told him that hurting others was beneath him, because we gentlemen don't like to get blood on our suits. Looking back, it's obvious I was in shock. Or I hadn't actually believed him, maybe. He seemed so pathetic to me, so utterly alone. It was impossible to imagine him doing anything dangerous. And yet isn't that always the most dangerous type? I didn't think he even heard my joke, he didn't laugh. Just stared. As always. Now I know better."

"He heard you," Sherlock says. "So… It was you who inspired him to become a consulting criminal."

"Yes. A gentleman never hurts others – he gets followers to hurt others for him, according to Jimmy's logic. He twisted every lesson I ever taught him. I never would have believed this before Jimmy, but some people are neurologically-wired only for evil. It's up to people like me to spot the warning signs. Instead I made a joke." The Professor's voice is hard, bitter. Self-hating. But then suddenly it turns even harder, and he looks straight at Sherlock. "Which is why, Mr. Holmes, you will understand if I don't want you around my daughter."

"What?" Sherlock sits up, taken aback.

"I have done my research on you," the Professor says, crossing his arms. "I realize you possess an incredible skill. But I'm not interested in anyone who suspects he may have Antisocial Personality Disorder. If you truly believe you are a sociopath, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave my house."

"I… I may use that label for convenience's sake," Sherlock says. "It's not entirely accurate."

"Convenience?" The Professor sneers. It's discomforting to see someone so paternal suddenly look so hard, and to see that hardness directed at_him,_ Sherlock. "And what could possibly be convenient about portraying yourself as devoid of human feelings?"

"It is…useful," Sherlock says carefully.

"Useful how, Mr. Holmes? If you don't want to answer, then you can leave without giving me an explanation."

"I'm not leaving," he says hurriedly. "It's just a label, I – "

"But it's not just a label. Anabelle told me you were diagnosed. Are you lying to me, now?"

"I was diagnosed, yes, but only because I wanted to be. I displayed the symptoms of a sociopath to my therapist because I needed the label," he explains.

"What you're telling me is that you manipulated someone very well, as a sociopath would, and that, like most sociopaths, you do not mind the term 'sociopath.'"

"I'm not a sociopath!" Sherlock says angrily. "I use the label because it protects me. I need an excuse for my inabilities to socialize normally, and for my fascination with topics considered dark by the general public. Being a sociopath blinds others to my inabilities."

"Ah, so this is a heartbreaking story of a young man who wishes to hide his vulnerabilities. Why should I believe you, Mr. Holmes? That's exactly what a sociopath would say, if I threatened to take my daughter away from him. Is she some sort of prize to you? The fruits of your labor?"

"Actually, I'm not entirely sure I like her all that much," says Sherlock truthfully. The Professor laughs.

"Forgive me if I don't believe you," he says.

"I'm only working with her because her knowledge of Moriarty's criminal web will prove useful to me once the decision in Gruner and Moran's trial is reached. We're just work partners," he explains.

"Is she aware that you're just work partners?"

"Yes, of course. Our relationship is strictly professional."

"Nothing with Anabelle is ever strictly professional. She loathes the very word. If all you intend to take from her is her knowledge of Moriarty, then make that clear now, because if not she will give much more," says the Professor. "And should she do so to no purpose, or worse – only to feel anguish in the face of your callousness – I will _not_ make jokes with you, Mr. Holmes, as I once did with Moriarty. The Madders are no longer a family that can be preyed upon."

It dawns on Sherlock, suddenly, why the Professor is doing this. Why he's turned so hard. Sure, it has everything to do with his past with Moriarty. But this is also one of "those conversations" that people always talk about, isn't it? The ones in crap telly? The hurt-my-daughter-and-I'll-hurt-you conversation?

Sherlock's wanted to have one of these conversations his entire life. Not this one specifically, but one of _those_ conversations, one of the normal kind. He'd nearly forgotten about them. But he feels, somewhere deep inside, a little thrilled.

He should mention this on the blog. John would find it funny.

"She's not my girlfriend," he says, feeling a bit like John. _We're not a couple._ "And she's thirty years old. I'm certain she can handle the likes of me."

"Age isn't a factor when it comes to sociopaths."

"I'm _not_ a sociopath!" Years of claiming he is, quite freely, and now he's denied it twice it one conversation.

"What proof do you have, Mr. Holmes? Because I would love to believe you. I would."

"Proof? What do you want? My life story?" Sherlock offers mockingly, through gritted teeth.

"Why, yes. That seems appropriate, considering the circumstances." Sherlock stares at the Professor. The Professor folds his hands in his lap and puts on the air of someone anticipating a good tale. "Please, Mr. Holmes," he says, prompting Sherlock with a gesture of his hand. "Proceed."

* * *

Notes: Everything I mention in this story about Moriarty's life has become entirely headcanon for me. xD edit: I've recently learned that apparently hospital bills aren't something one would have to worry about in Ireland. But, because I'm American, I'm just going to forget that little fact. :)


	13. Facing the Soft Ghost

"[It's] far better to leave things in everyone's imaginations. It's nice to give little hints here and there but never a full answer. Why are the Holmes brothers the way they are? What are their parents like?" -Gatiss

* * *

"I can't," Sherlock says. "I wouldn't know where to begin."

"Start at the beginning," the Professor says. A moment passes. Sherlock's eyes dart from the Professor, back to his own pressed-together fingertips. Again. Again. Then – "I was born on January 6th, at 11:16 P.M." – the facts come streaming from his lips. Objective information, distanced from himself, comforting._ Who, what, when, where._ No _whys_ or _hows. _Pouring out from him, revealing nothing. Aiding, in fact, in obscuring him, building a wall around him brick by brick. _Violet and Joseph Holmes_ – one brick. _The Holmes' estate_ – two bricks. _1978_ – three bricks. _Sussex_ – four bricks.

"Mr. Holmes, this is hardly productive," the Professor interrupts.

"You asked for my life story," Sherlock points out.

"I asked for proof that you're not a sociopath," the Professor says. "Why don't we start with something more…subjective? What is your first memory?"

His first memory. That's not something he can share with this man, this acquaintance. And it certainly won't prove he's not a sociopath. If anything, it indicates that he is. Which, for the first time in decades, isn't something he wants.

Memories distort over time; they bend at the lightest touch, the faintest whimsy, become dull and misshapen like old clothes. While all of his other, calmer memories have faded in just this way, or become so jumbled as to be untrustworthy, this memory is interwoven with anger and pain, making it radiate above the rest. The experience as a whole is disconnected; it blurs together, with only snapshots focusing clearly. He recalls, for instance, throwing open the backdoor and running through the acres-large garden of his home. The violent thumps of his child-feet against the grass, the swing of his chubby arms, the irrationality of his fury. He remembers when he first caught sight of the red rosebushes, the first whiff of the sweet, redolent scent they emitted, the moment when he thought _This will do._ Wait, no, he thought nothing so logical. It was purely visceral, an instinct for revenge that drew him to the roses, and made him plunge into them. Can't say now why destroying the rosebushes seemed like the proper way to get back at Mycroft – can't even say what he was getting back at Mycroft _for._ Or perhaps it had nothing to do with crushing the flowers, ripping off the petals and leaving them to wilt. Perhaps, even then, he knew that self-destruction was the best way to hurt his brother.

Snapshot: His tiny, pudgy child-fists pounding into the bushes, his scream sounding out as thorns slashed painfully into his tender skin. The scream ripped through the curtains of the open windows, brought Mycroft running. He was skinny in those days, bounding across the yard in half the time it had taken Sherlock's short limbs. When he came to snatch Sherlock up, the bushes were ruined, concaved in on themselves from Sherlock's weight. And Sherlock was covered in cuts. He now recalls, most distinctly, the way the prickling, itching pain sent him further into his tantrum. Snapshot: Blood trickling down his forearms to his chubby fists, drenching his whole world in red the shade of rage.

Mycroft sat Sherlock on the kitchen counter and undressed him. He brought out the First-aid kit from under the sink and tended to every single scratch and open wound on Sherlock's body, from the pads of his toes to the crown of his head. Sherlock never thanked Mycroft; he screamed and hit every time the disinfectant burned, and afterwards would only complain about the Band-Aids that covered him.

Later: Sherlock's crib, pushed up against a window, providing a view of the back of the house. Dawn leaking into that window, and the distinct, snapping sound of garden shears stirring little Sherlock to wakefulness. Him, peaking out at the window from behind the wooden bars of his bed, and seeing a silhouette out there in the distance, working tenderly on the wounded roses. It was a man's shadow, but not a man he had ever seen before; it wasn't the cook, or the butler, or even the gardener. He faced the rosebushes, back turned toward Sherlock. Briefly, when the man looked up to see the rising sun, he adjusted his spectacles. Snapshot: Those spectacles throwing off a beam of sunlight, blinding Sherlock for just a moment.

Sherlock curled back into his blanket and went to sleep. In the morning, the man with the shears was gone, although the frayed roses were cleared away, and the merely injured stems had been tended to. In Sherlock's four year-old brain, it was quite obvious that the man had been a ghost.

Sherlock comes back to the present. "I don't have a very good memory," he lies. "I can't recall much about my childhood – nothing specific."

"Alright then," says the Professor. Sherlock isn't sure whether or not the Professor believes him, but he doesn't press. "What were your general relationships, then? With your parents? Any siblings you had?"

Snapshot: On Mummy's lap, her fingers dancing through his curls. Her laugh, the laughter of other women. Pleasant conversation. Soft, light voices, mixed with the clinks of fine china, like a lullaby to Sherlock's ears. Curling up in Mummy's skirt, sleeping at the tea table.

Snapshot: Mycroft wiping a knife – and a considerable quantity of peanut butter – across a slice of wheat bread. Sherlock's tongue glued to his palate with peanut butter, his fingers sticky with jelly. A wet napkin in Mycroft's big hands, cleaning the jelly away.

Snapshot: Mycroft sitting across from him on the carpet, a handful of magnets between them. Bright, colorful, plastic. The alphabet. _"Show me B, Sherlock. Show me B."_

Snapshot: Hearing those shears at dawn, or sometimes even midnight. Whenever the sun was weak, the heat not so oppressive. Sherlock, one day, crawling out of his crib, falling on his knees to the floor. Going downstairs while the rest of the house slept, and waiting by the backdoor. The ghost coming in when the sun rose. Sherlock so surprised he barely caught sight of the phantom before he drifted past, the phantom himself so lost in thought he didn't notice the waiting boy. Sherlock running down the hall, scared to death of the garden-monster but eager to discover the truth about him. Pitter-patter, little feet, hurried and unheard. Following the ghost to the edge of a narrow hall, where Sherlock stopped for fright. Snapshot: The door at the end of the hall, which the ghost drifted through. Snapshot: Heart pounding as Sherlock hurried back to bed, positive he had found the monster's lair.

"My relationships were typical," Sherlock says now. "My mother was attentive, affectionate. My brother was…protective. Parental, in some ways. But that's typical amongst elder siblings, is it not?" Sherlock's gaze narrows in on his own fingernails.

"It is," the Professor confirms. If he notices that Sherlock hasn't mentioned his father, he doesn't pry. Instead he says, "Do you have any memories from school?"

"I went a private school during my kindergarten year," Sherlock says. Back to objective facts. Much better.

"And after that?"

"Homeschooled," says Sherlock, frowning. He thinks of his headmaster, saying, _"We're afraid that if your son doesn't begin receiving weekly therapy sessions, he will no longer be permitted to attend our school."_

"Can you remember even one specific thing about your interactions with your peers?"

Sherlock's first day of school: In the middle desk in the front row, a dark-skinned boy with his uniform tie tied too loosely. Sherlock's had been tied just right by Mycroft. Sherlock was pleased with how well-groomed he looked, compared to some of his rumpled-clothed, or boogie-plagued, classmates. At the time, his special interest had nothing at all to do with detective work. Instead, he loved arachnids. All kinds. Scorpions, spiders, tarantulas. He brought great distress to the heart of Mummy by finding pristine spider webs in the garden, and capturing them between two panes of glass, which Mycroft would then frame. It was, to Sherlock, the most delightful pastime a boy could ever imagine. He wanted nothing more than to share it.

Without hesitation, he marched up to the dark-skinned boy's desk and opened a book he had brought from home. It revealed one of his favorite photographs of the _Euscorpius flavicaudis,_ on page 46.

"Did you know," Sherlock began, "that there are nearly 2,000 species of scorpions, and one of the species has colonized _here,_ in the U.K.? Most people think that scorpions are really harmful, but these ones hardly ever use their stingers. The _Euscorpius flavicaudis_ lives in Kent, because it likes moderate – "

And that was when the boy fully processed the photograph and started screaming.

Later, the teacher reprimanded Sherlock.

"Is it true you showed Rehan a book of scary pictures?" the teacher asked.

"That is not true," Sherlock said in a voice of boyish indignation. "I showed him _The Arachnids of Europe_ by John Fletching. 1955, first edition."

This hadn't much helped Sherlock's case.

Sherlock recounts this story to the Professor. The Professor doesn't laugh as he tells it, although everyone else, including John, has. He looks serious enough when he says, "Do you remember how you felt when that happened, Sherlock?"

"Confused," Sherlock says. "I thought scorpions were fascinating – I thought he'd want to be my friend."

"And you wanted a friend, yes?"

_No, never. Stupid thing to want. Waste of time. Never needed one. Sentimental, weak –_

_I am _not_a sociopath._

"Yes," Sherlock says sincerely.

"Did you have any peer interaction after you were homeschooled?"

"No," says Sherlock. "Mummy thought my leaving the estate would sully me."

The Professor frowns. "She homeschooled you herself, then?"

"No, Father did that," says Sherlock. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that the Professor looks mildly surprised.

"And what was that like?"

_Wonderful._ "It was nice," Sherlock says noncommittally. "He was a well-educated man."

"Can you describe a memory involving him?"

A memory comes to mind immediately: Meeting his father. Facing the ghost at the end of the hall. The monster with shears for hands. The silent specter with his mouth sewed shut. His father had, over the years, been reduced to – or built up to – a phantasmagoric form that lurked in the darkest haunts of young Sherlock's imagination.

"Mummy, please," Sherlock begged. She was dragging him down the hallway he never went through. Strange to imagine such a thin, delicate woman ever being stronger than him. "Please, Mummy, _please._ Don't make me. Get Mycroft to teach me, pleeeease. Mycroft knows _everything."_

The hall was dimly-lit, uncomfortable. Stifling, as if no living being had passed through it for many years, no one's breathing displacing the dust, no one's warmth cutting through the cold. Just the ghost, gliding back and forth each night.

"Mycroft is busy with his own schoolwork, dear. Come along, Sheryl. You'll break my pearl bracelet if you keep pulling."

"Mycroft gets to go to school," Sherlock sniffed. Against his will, his mother continued to succeed in dragging him along. "Why can't I? I want to go back. I didn't do anything wrong, I _promise."_

"Of course you didn't, dear," Mummy cooed. Then her fine features darkened. "To accuse a _Holmes_ of _madness._ No, Sheryl, you've done nothing wrong. The school just made the terrible mistake of trying to tarnish our family name. _Therapy sessions_ - ridiculous! But you'll show your_ex-_headmaster how little you need him, won't you? You'll be good for your father, won't you?"

By then they made it to the dreaded end of the hall. Towering above Sherlock was a knocker in the center of the door before them. It was too high for Sherlock to reach, but he wouldn't have wanted to touch it anyway, as it frightened him. It was gilded in gold and depicted a leering, bearded man with grapes wrapped around his head. (Sherlock would learn later that it was Bacchus.) His mother knocked three times.

They heard a noise within, like a book falling on a desk. The room's occupant – the ghost, the monster, the demon, his father – must have been startled. The knocker was coated in a fine layer of dust; clearly the creature that lurked inside did not often receive visitors.

A few moments later, the door opened. A face peered out at them. Sherlock was surprised. The face had not a demon's features, but only those of a man. The man was not peculiar in the slightest. Rather than being undead or ancient, he looked as young as Mummy. He was, however, much taller than Mummy. Taller, in fact, than anyone Sherlock had ever seen before. Probably six whole feet! He looked down at Sherlock, regarding the boy with equal curiosity. He had high cheekbones and the exact same shade of eyes as Sherlock's. Round spectacles balanced precariously on the bridge of his long nose, casting an academic air over handsome features. His entire countenance possessed a childlike innocence, and Sherlock felt himself warmed. All at once the notion in Sherlock's head, of his father being the ghost of the estate, was replaced by something much lighter.

"Hoc est eum?" the man asked. He had a pleasant, bass voice, but the strange words he gargled made Sherlock reach for Mummy's hand.

"Est," Mummy said, nudging Sherlock forward.

"What are you saying?" Sherlock asked Mummy. The man tilted his head at his wife, a small frown on his lips.

"Facit puer non lingua?"

"Non tamen," said Mummy.

The man shook his head, placing his hand across his face in exasperation. He rubbed his temples with long, bony fingers. After a moment he regained his composure and farther opened the door, gesturing for Sherlock to enter. He waved to his wife and, once Sherlock was in the room, closed the door.

The office was a cluttered, antiquated mess: it was filled with Victorian oddities, including a Penny-farthing bicycle in the corner; Persian rugs and warm, Rococo furniture littered the hardwood floor; shelves displayed leather bound tomes and, most prominently of all, tapestries lined the walls. They were intricate and awe-inspiring, depicting various mythological scenes that brought horrors to Sherlock's mind: Arachne turning into a spider, Cronus eating his children, Sisyphus with a boulder on his back, Hercules's wife being attacked by the centaur Nessus.

Sherlock looked at all of these with widened eyes. His father waited patiently while he took everything in. When he finally got to the bookshelves, however, Sherlock was displeased.

"These books aren't in English," Sherlock huffed. He looked at his father, who nodded. "So you _do_ understand English?" His father nodded again. "But you won't speak it?"

"Cito discere Latin," his father said.

Sherlock pouted, crossing his arms. "How are you supposed to teach me if I can't understand you, or read any of your books? I want to go back to school! Get Mummy to take me back to school!"

Without meaning to, Sherlock began to cry. He fell to the floor and pounded his tiny fists against the rug, bringing up puffs of dust.

"I WANT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL," he shouted. His father made a small choking noise and took a step toward Sherlock, before backing away completely. The man's hands fluttered uselessly in a panic. "MUMMY. MUMMY. COME BACK. BRING ME TO SCHOOL!" Sherlock wailed.

His father stood there for a while, watching his son's tantrum, occasionally revealing his fright through a moan or the way he wrung his hands around his cravat. Sherlock's meltdown carried on for nearly an hour, however, during which time his father seemed to give up, and went back to his writing desk. Sherlock pounded on the study door and wiggled its doorknob, but found that Mummy had locked it from the outside. He cried and cried until, exhausted, he slumped against the wall and looked up at his father.

"How will you teach me?" he asked, sniffling. He wiped his tears and snot on his sleeve and his father looked up from his desk. When he saw that Sherlock was done making noise, he smiled and approached the boy, lowering himself on his knees.

"Sherlock," his father said. "Ego sum Pater." He pointed to Sherlock's chest and said, "Sherlock," then pointed at himself and said, "Pater."

"Pater," Sherlock repeated. "How will you teach me?"

Pater shook his head, and said, "Pater, quomodo docere me?"

"Pater, quomodo…" Sherlock frowned.

"Quomodo docere me?" his father said, and this time Sherlock repeated the phrase back to him. His father grinned, looking delighted, and rested his hands lightly on his son's shoulders before taking them off. Sherlock would soon learn that this was his father's version of a hug. Pater wiped one of Sherlock's tears away and reached for his desk. Stretching, he retrieved a book and handed it to his son. Sherlock took it and looked at the cover.

"M-meta…morphoses?" Sherlock said. His father nodded eagerly, so he kept reading: "Ab Ovid."

His father clapped once, and stood. "Nos incipient!"

The adult Sherlock shakes himself out of his reverie and says, "A memory of him? I can't recall, sorry."

"He homeschooled you, and yet you claim to have absolutely no memories whatsoever of your father," the Professor states. He says it like it's a fact he accepts, but even to Sherlock this sounds absurd.

"No, there are a few," Sherlock says. "A few I can share."

"Like what?"

"He was interested in Philosophy. He taught me to read and speak Latin fluently, and would spend hours translating Ancient Greek works into Latin, so that I could read them."

Snapshot: A magnifying glass in his father's left hand, moving across and down a page as he read. A feather quill in his right hand, translating the work he read as he was reading it. Sherlock would sit with a book in an armchair across the office, peaking up every now and then, mesmerized by his father's unceasing, steady movements.

From his books Sherlock learned lots of things that a boarding school would have never taught him. From Thales he learned that everything is made out of water, and from Pythagoras that beans are forbidden. He learned how to calculate the size of the globe from Eratosthenes, and from Aristotle he learned about government. Physics, linguistics, biology, zoology – it was all taught to Sherlock, in his father's translated works, and all from men who lived thousands of years ago. A quality education for any Roman boy.

Now, Sherlock's fists clench. "Actually," he says suddenly, "I'd rather talk about something else."

"Alright." The Professor inclines his head.

"My father owned a violin. He taught me to play," Sherlock says, a small smile creeping on his lips.

"Do you still?"

"Play? Yes."

Father rarely spoke – preferring, instead, gentle gestures of his hands, or a slight alteration in his facial muscles, indicative of some change of emotion. When he did speak, it was in the ancient tongue, understood fluently by only some dozen people today. No, the body language and Latin were both rubbish. Father's real voice was his violin.

Every summer Sherlock went to the Netherlands with Mycroft and Mummy, visiting Mummy's sister. For weeks before Sherlock left, his father would stand by his study window, playing out a low, doleful dirge, the sobs of a lonely man. And when Sherlock returned, the study would be filled with cheery, chirpy tunes, so free-spirited that they made Sherlock giggle. For the anachronism that was Mr. Holmes, music was timeless, the only fluid tool capable of transporting his thoughts into the outer world.

"And how did he teach you?" the Professor asks. But, even as he speaks, Sherlock thinks of a memory that sears across his mind, burning until he brushes it away.

"I can't remember," Sherlock blurts.

"Mr. Holmes, isn't there _anything_ about your past life that you recall at all?"

Snapshot: Father and Sherlock in the garden at night, squatting beside one another, waiting eagerly, patiently, in silence, for the night-blooming_Ipomoea muricatae_ to uncurl their petals. Mycroft coming outside.

"_Come in, Sherlock, it's past your bedtime."_

"_Pater and I are waiting for the _Ipomoea muricatae_ to bloom!"_

Snapshot: In the garden, Mycroft when he saw his father. Eyes flashing full of contempt. Sherlock confused, couldn't understand why.

Snapshot: Crying on Aunt's balcony in Delft, South Holland. The French doors opening behind Sherlock, Mycroft walking through.

"_Don't cry for father, Sherlock, don't miss him. Be happy you're away from him."_

_"His name is Pater!"_

Snapshot: Mycroft giving Sherlock a box of books for Christmas. Sherlock bringing them to his father's study, so that father could burn them, turn all the English words to cinders and ash.

"No," Sherlock says. "My memory is absolutely blank."

"Well, then, I suppose there's nothing to be done," says the Professor, rising. He takes a long time to rise, groans as he does it, revealing his age. He places his chair back beneath Luke's desk and goes to the doorway.

"Are you still tired, Mr. Holmes?" he asks.

"More than ever," Sherlock answers.

"Then rest, Mr. Holmes. Rest." He closes the door behind him.

* * *

**Notes:**

As always, thanks for reading!

Also, here's the English translations of the Latin. Please note that the Latin is Google Translate-provided, and therefore mostly wrong. So this is was it's _supposed_ to say, rather than what it does say:

"Hoc est eum?" This is him?  
"Est." It is.  
"Facit puer non lingua?" The boy doesn't know the language?  
"Non tamen." Not yet.  
"Cito discere Latin." You will learn Latin.  
"Quomodo docere me?" How will you teach me?  
"Nos incipient!" We begin!  
_

Next chapter...back to the present.


	14. Texts

"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across... Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic." - Sherlock Holmes, _A Study in Scarlet_

* * *

They have five more days in New York City before leaving for Berlin. Sherlock is bored, irritable, and feeling more and more foul whenever he considers the cause of his ennui; the last four days have been spent avoiding the Professor (who has not sought him out) and avoiding Anabelle (who refuses to leave him alone). He's been forced to waste his own time, because Anabelle thought it appropriate to try to hoodwink him into some type of therapy. The entire plot is insulting and patronizing to an unprecedented degree. Their disagreement over his mental health has led, already, to several heated arguments, all of which Sherlock planned for and anticipated, if only because they serve as temporary relief from his current unbearable state. He likes to choose the time and place for their arguments, which typically means that he will wake her up in the middle of the night, or catch her while she's meditating, or start yelling at some other time when she thinks herself entirely relaxed. It is, perhaps, cruel, but nothing she doesn't deserve. And she certainly never surrenders.

Embarrassingly, their last fight had ended in her victory. "I don't need your help," he'd said coldly, during the middle of an argument, "because I am entirely self-sufficient."

"Ah, yes," she had said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "it was very self-sufficient of you to travel to Sudan with a dozen of your big brother's men."

"Just as your inability to travel without a man is very feministic of you," he'd spat. "Gloria Steinem must be_ applauding_ in her grave."

"Gloria Steinem is alive, you idiot," she'd said flatly. This comment had led to an entirely different argument regarding knowledge acquisition, and the general public's mental collection of useless information, and how Sherlock thought it unbefitting for someone as intelligent as Dr. Madder to clutter her thoughts with irrelevant facts. She'd laughed at that, saying, "That's the stupidest theory on knowledge acquisition I've ever heard! Surely you don't really believe that the brain has a limited capacity for knowledge?"

She'd paused, but not long enough to give him time to respond. She'd realized something. "No. No, of course you're not that stupid. That's just an excuse, isn't it? That's your excuse for not knowing something. You made some cock-and-bull theory you know has no merit, and you spout it out every time someone knows something you don't, so that you can sound _more_ intelligent than the person who knows something to which you are ignorant. Astounding, Sherlock. Your ego knows no bounds."

And that had essentially been the conclusion of their last argument. He hadn't let her have the last word, of course; he'd stalked out of the room after pointing out some made-up flaw in her character, but was positive that both of them felt she had won. This leaves him seething.

He's certain that she feels smug about their disagreement, and has been reflecting on it with an air of satisfaction. This is why he's surprised when he finds her in Luke's bedroom in the evening, looking for all the world like they'd never fought at all. She stands like she's been waiting for him, and he immediately registers that, although she's in her typical jeans and boots, she's also wearing a particularly nice blazer, making her better-dressed than usual. Meaning: She has plans.

"What do you want?" he demands, regarding her suspiciously. She smiles.

"You weren't going to go to bed now, were you? It's only seven o'clock," she says.

"I'm tired," he says. It's true; alarmingly, he's found himself sleeping over twelve hours a day most of the time, and yet always feels unrested. It's because of the ceaseless ennui, he's sure. Tediousness kills the brain and body.

"It's one of our last nights in New York. We need to go out!" she says.

"Why would we - " But before he can finish his sentence, she grabs his hand and drags him out of Luke's bedroom. He follows after her.

"You didn't come down for dinner tonight," she explains once they're outside, walking down the pavement, "so I thought you might be hungry." Her neighborhood in Manhattan is much nicer than his in London, although this doesn't make him like it. He doesn't enjoy having to rely on her for directions, and, rather than appreciating the lack of homelessness in this particular cluster of city blocks, he finds himself missing even his homeless network.

"Nor did I last night," Sherlock points out. He uses his Norwegian accent outside, just to be safe. His colored contacts, which he'd taken out in the apartment, are back in again.

"One would think you're angry with me," Anabelle says.

"One might be correct," he says.

She smiles, looking up at him as they continue walking. "Or incorrect?"

"Or incorrect," he admits.

"And one should probably realize that Dr. Anabelle Madder never meant to offend a certain Mr. Sigerson Boler, but only to offer him some fiery form of entertainment, as she thought it might be the cure to the monotony through which he's been suffering lately."

"You called me an idiot," he points out.

"I meant it fondly," she says. Although she doesn't know it, this reminds him so much of John that she's quite abruptly, and thoroughly, forgiven. She's even forgiven again when she drags him into the dark and foul-smelling underground to take the subway rather than catching a cab.

"Only tourists take taxis," she says decisively, as she leads him down the stone steps and pulls out her wallet, to buy a Metrocard.

The subway car is crowded and uncomfortable. Being with Anabelle makes all the difference, however; they stand opposite each other, separated by a black woman who is enthusiastically mouthing the lyrics to some imagined song, several Chinese businessmen, and a Hispanic couple. As the car shifts and rocks, with New Yorkers occasionally bumping into him, Sherlock stiffly takes hold of the pole in front of him, keeping his balance. The pole is hot from where phantom hands recently pressed against it, making him feel vaguely mysophobic. He closes his eyes, trying to block out the sound of the subway grinding against its tracks, and the people talking, and the sour scent of human perspiration. Suddenly, he feels something warm against his fingers. When he opens his eyes, he sees that Anabelle has taken hold of the pole too, and she's interlocked her fingers with his. He doesn't pull away.

They go into Chinatown.

"The Dumpling House has some of the best food in the city," she says, as they approach the said eatery. "It's a little crowded, though, if you'd like to wait outside."

"I'm fine," Sherlock says quickly, and follows her indoors. She hadn't been exaggerating; the Dumpling House is full of people ordering at the counter and eating at small tables, in close proximity with one another. Sherlock lets Anabelle lead him to the register and stands behind her as she orders. When one of the Chinese women behind the counter starts yelling out order numbers, he rests his hands on Anabelle's shoulders, feeling her warmth, and feeling the rough material of her blazer. And ultimately just feeling very, very grounded.

They eat in a nearby park, away from the busyness of the Dumpling House. Anabelle ordered Sherlock vegetable dumplings and mung bean soup, which she now retrieves from a brown paper takeout bag.

"The food is great," she assures.

He nods. "Yes, quite."

She laughs. "You haven't tried it yet."

"No. But you can always tell a good Chinese place by examining the bottom third of the door handle - " Suddenly, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes it out and flips it open. It's from Mycroft.

**8:47 P.M.** _Trial conclusion: Acquitted. Moran and Gruner have been released._

The whole world abruptly shushes. It waits, watching for Sherlock's next move. Sherlock's mind whirls into action, planning his next steps before he even reads the end of the text. Objective: Destroy Moriarty's web of crime. Method of destruction: End Moran and Gruner. He'll need to get Mycroft's men to follow both Moran and Gruner, as they'll doubtlessly leave the U.K. immediately - perhaps even Europe. Will they come here? To America? Should he wait to find out? It would certainly make things more convenient. He'll have to be the one to kill them, of course. Mycroft and his assistants can scarcely kill two men who have just been acquitted in a very publicized trial. There are limits to what even Mycroft Holmes can do. Sherlock, though, presumed dead, would be the perfect assassin... It's really only a matter of tracing the men, finding them before they're lost.

Anabelle doesn't have to read the text to know what it says. Silently, she begins packing up the dumplings, thoughts racing equally fast. Then the phone buzzes again. Sherlock opens it as Anabelle watches. He takes a long time to read this text, although she can tell from the movement of his eyes that he's not scanning over any long lines of letters. Therefore, he's reading something short. And rereading it. And rereading it again. Finally, he swallows, his Adam's apple quivering, and he holds the phone out to her. She doesn't need to read this message, either, though, as he soon opens his mouth to speak. His voice comes out thick and raspy, a little disbelieving, although it was something they were both expecting, something they would have been anticipating if they'd been keeping better track of time.

"It's John," he says. "He was released two days ago."

* * *

**notes:** If anyone's confused about the timeline, it's June 18th, 2012. Unfortunately, I based my story's timeline off of one very incorrect post on someone's Tumblr and the dates on John's blog (which are wrong, too). Buuuut try to just go with it. :)


	15. Goodbye, Goodbye

The rain begins immediately. Sherlock slips his phone into his pocket, and proceeds to slip into his own mind. The last image he sees before succumbing to dissociation is Anabelle Madder, reaching out to him, lips moving.

Her words are drowned out by the rumbling of the thunder (or is that white noise coming from his own head?), but he imagines she's saying,_"Goodbye, goodbye," _as he rises and begins walking, half-blind, down the pavement.

This is not his detective state. This is not Sherlock Holmes, spry and snarky and on the case. This is Sherlock Holmes left alone for days in the flat, after John decided to fly to New Zealand without telling him. His senses are numbed. Visually, he perceives the world as a charcoal imitation of itself, smudged in blacks and greys, all the details blurred away.

He's led to the underground, where Anabelle fumbles around for their Metrocards. Outwardly, he is nearly catatonic, his eyes eerily unblinking, his body stiff. He doesn't so much as sway when the subway car comes to its jerky halts. He's thinking, all of his energy focused inwards, all of his senses inverting.

By the time they emerge from the subway, blocks from the Madder apartment, the rain is pouring. Black umbrellas pop up all over the streets, and these prove to be the obstacle that forces him back to reality for a bit. With dreamlike, graceful motions, he ducks and darts out of the way of careless pedestrians, neatly avoiding getting jabbed in the eye.

_John could run right beneath these umbrellas._ It's an automatic thought, and he pushes it away immediately.

_It's morning in London right now. Is this storm in London? Could it be waking John up?_

He shoves the thoughts away. But they're relentless.

_Is he even sleeping? Or is he celebrating his newfound freedom? Is he darting beneath black umbrellas? Is he…?_

* * *

In the Madder apartment, Anabelle brings Sherlock up to the Professor's study, where two of the four walls are bordered by oversized windows, giving a very excellent view of the storm. Lightning flashes every few minutes, lighting up the room like a sporadic strobe light. Raindrops, fat and heavy and bountiful, splatter against the glass panes of the windows. Sherlock watches the chaos, feeling unsettled. Something is wrong, somehow, with the weather outside. It's an incorrect storm. But why?

"Sherlock, are you listening to me?"

He hears the voice but not its words; he sees the body as a simulacrum of something corporeal, a cluster of shadows. He steps around it, nearing the window, and glances at the storm again. Then he turns back, pacing in a circle.

"So we'll have to – "

He steps around the noise again.

Oh. Noise. _Noise._ Yes! That's it! The _noise_ is wrong. There's the occasional rumble of thunder, of course, and that's expected. But something is missing. The raindrops – they're streaking against the glass, fogging up the view, but he can't _hear_ them. There's no roof directly above him. He's staying in a flat in an apartment building, like a bee occupying his bit of hive. Strangers walk above him where a roof should be. And strangers dull the sound of raindrops.

"Can you even hear me, Sherlock? Are you listening to my ideas at all?"

If, in theory, John were home right now, in 221B, and awake, he would be hearing the incessant plinks of a million little rain-fingers tapping against the roof. And that roof would be the only thing above him, and it would be his roof – their roof – and it would protect them from the rain, and from the city bustle that drives Sherlock insane, and from John's war that drives _him_ insane. The roof would keep out the isolation, too, by keeping them in, together, with Mrs. Hudson snoozing below them.

"Stop pacing, please, Sherlock!"

That's what the rain does. It reminds him of a roof, miles and miles and an ocean away, and of all the things that once occupied the space beneath that roof.

"Sherlock? Can you hear me…?"

* * *

It's a simple song. He wrote it about John, and he plays it now. Although, when he thinks about it, he can't remember leaving to fetch his violin, and he can't remember coming back. Minutes have elapsed, and shadows stretch across his mind where memories should be. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to recall. He needs to pace, around and around this shrouded room. He needs to play, to cover up the absence of raindrops falling against a roof.

The song is a childish exaltation. He'd written it the night after John shot the cabbie. He'd thought he was writing about that, but who writes a tune fit for a jubilee in response to having seen a man murdered? Not even Sherlock would do that.

The notes sing to him, and they don't mention a cabbie. _Yippee!_ the chorus seems to say. _Hooray! John saved the day! And I've finally found a friend! I'll never be alone again! Wahoo, yippee, hooray!_

The door of the study creaks open, but Sherlock's too busy playing and pacing to notice.

"Sherlock, please, it's been over an hour."

_Whoopee! Dee-la-dee! John has saved the day!_

"Stop pacing, just a few minutes?"

_A friend, a friend, a friend!_

"Please, Sherlock."

_I've finally found a friend!_

"At least give me Mycroft's number."

_Never alone again!_

"You're going to break your violin."

_John – oh, yes – oh, yay! John has saved the day!_

"Stop it!" The bow is swiped from Sherlock's hands, slipping through his fingers even as he grabs to get it back. He's snapped from his reverie.

He returns to reality. He sees again. It's not as if his vision returns, but rather it's as if he always saw, but only now has the world decided to be rational, the furniture from the office appearing out of thin air, piecing together, arranging itself. The floor is conjured up beneath his feet. Anabelle materializes before him. The universe is whole again.

Sherlock tilts his head. He looks curiously at his violin.

"Did you hurt it?" Anabelle asks.

Echoic memory: The human brain's ability to recall the last several second's worth of auditory information with reliable accuracy. Sherlock now recalls, for instance, that he had not been playing John's song at all. He'd been walking in circles and abusing his violin ruthlessly. The piece – not a piece, just notes thrown violently together – had actually been sad. Like an innocent animal left for dead, wounded and wailing horrendously.

Sherlock clears his throat. "I…apologize for the cacophony," he says. Then he cocks an eyebrow at her, as if expecting something.

"What?" Anabelle asks.

"Well…?"

"Well what?" she says.

"Where are they?"

She stares blankly.

"Moran and Gruner!" Sherlock says. "Surely you haven't done _nothing_ for the past hour? Haven't you been planning?"

"How could I have?" she says.

"You didn't think to text Mycroft?"

"I asked you for his number. Repeatedly. A while ago," she says, voice deadpan. Sherlock pauses. He may have subconsciously registered those requests in a vague sort of way.

"Ah, yes, well," he says, clearing his throat again. "Here's his number." He gets out his phone. "Just use my mobile, actually. It's safer."

"Can't you text him yourself, now that you're…here?" she says, although Sherlock's fairly certain he never actually went anywhere. Not physically, at least.

"Ah. Yes. Of course I can," Sherlock says quickly, and he writes a text message to Mycroft. It reads:

_Where is John?_

Wait. That's not right. He presses the 'clear' button and restarts. Needs to ask where Moran and Gruner are. He types:

_Where is John?_

He frowns, tries again, fails, and shoves the mobile into Anabelle's hand.

"Ask him where they are," he demands. She shoots him an inquisitive look, but complies. "We need to know if they're leaving Europe."

"Regardless of where they are, we'll still have to go to Berlin tomorrow morning. I did research there in graduate school, on cryptanalysis. We have a lot of data to delete."

"Of course," Sherlock says. Eradicating the Sasaki Code is their first priority; if Gruner and Moran were to replicate the code, Sherlock and Anabelle would have a much harder job of getting rid of them. And, should the Sasaki Code be replicated by the enemy, then it would be impossible to destroy either entirely. It would spread too quickly to too many criminals across the globe, wreaking too much havoc for two people to control.

Sherlock's mobile buzzes. Anabelle flips it open.

"Gruner is on his way to Paris," Anabelle says, reading. "And Moran, as of right now, is still in London."

"Still in London?" Sherlock blinks. "Why would he stay in London?"

"He'll never leave London," Anabelle answers, and she sounds so decisive that Sherlock stares at her.

"What did you just say?" he says. She looks up at him.

"He'll never leave London," she repeats.

"He'll never leave London?" Sherlock raises his eyebrows.

"Never," Anabelle confirms, not noticing his suspicious expression. "He's far too attached to the city."

There is a moment of silence. Neither of them blink.

"You know Moran," Sherlock finally states. "Colonel Sebastian Moran. Why would _you_ know him?"

"We've met before." Anabelle shrugs. "He was nice. In a scary sort of way." When Sherlock continues to stare at her, she says, "What?"

"You're not telling me something. Something important," he says.

"It's an incredibly dull story."

"I want to hear it."

"It's very boring."

"It could help us find him."

"It really couldn't."

"Tell me anyway," he says. "I want to know."

"It's dull."

"I can cope with a little dullness."

"It's a romance."

"Not that much dullness," he says quickly, and changes the subject. "Right. So. We'll go after Gruner first, if you're positive Moran will stay in London?"

"Pretty positive, yes," she answers.

"He's predictable. Interesting," Sherlock thinks aloud.

"Why is that interesting?"

"Because Moriarty wasn't," he answers. Then he continues with his plan, "We'll head to Berlin, then immediately make our way to Paris and track Gruner down. Tell Mycroft to book the tickets. And ask him how much criminal protection he thinks Gruner is being given."

"Of course," Anabelle answers, typing away.

"I'll look up the plane times from Berlin to Paris," Sherlock decides, and he heads towards the Professor's desk. He clicks at the Professor's Mac, and the screen comes to life. He intends to go to Google and search for plane tickets. Sincerely, he does. But his fingers, as if moving with a will of their own, type instead, . .

John posted an entry two days ago. It contains one sentence.

_He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him._

Sherlock snorts. What a stupid, plebeian thing to say. What sort of grown man uses the term 'best friend'? And how could he believe in Sherlock? Sherlock, who threw himself off of a rooftop, who insisted he was a fraud? As always, John isn't seeing the evidence. He's an idiot. He's staring proof in the face and denying that it's there. No – it's worse than that. He's acknowledging the proof. He's posted, below his sentence, a video of some dull news report on Sherlock's suicide. John sees the proof. He doesn't ignore it. But he reaches the wrong conclusions regardless. He believes the opposite of what any logical human being of average intelligence would believe. He's an idiot.

But he's right. He's completely right.

_John, John, the conductor of light! He's right, he's right, he's right!_

"How much is it?" Anabelle's voice sounds over his tune.

"To fly from Berlin to Paris?" Sherlock says, thinking fast. "Erm…300 euros."

"Really? Not bad."

"Mm." Sherlock looks back at the screen.

_He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him._

"Right. Well. Our plane for Berlin leaves in just hours. Be up at five A.M., okay?" Anabelle says, and she steps toward the doorway. She says 'be up at,' and not 'be up by,' indicating that she's well aware that Sherlock likely won't sleep tonight.

How could he, with such a irritatingly cheerful tune in his head?

_Yippee, wahoo, hooray! He's right, he's right, he's right!_

* * *

It's one o'clock when Sherlock finally succumbs. He scrambles out of Luke's bed, where he had been making a pathetic attempt at sleep, and turns on his (Sigerson's) laptop. He writes John a message, and sends it as a comment on his blog. It takes nearly an hour to write, as he needs to sound enough like Sigerson Bøler so as to be convincing, and enough heterosexual so as to not scare John away. Finally he has:

_Dearest Jonathan,_

_I'm writing to tell you how sorry I am for the loss of your friend. I've been reading your blog for years – ever since you started writing about Mr. Sherlock Holmes – and it saddens me to know that the world has lost such a fantastic man. Because Sherlock was indeed fantastic. Really, really something remarkable._

_I have recently lost a friend as well. His name is Luke Madder. I'm not sure where he is, or if I'll ever see him again. But I miss him more than anything. He is my best – and really my only – friend, and no one can replace him._

_As I feel I may know what you're going through, I wanted to encourage you and wish you well._

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes,_

_Sigerson_

_xoxo_

He clicks 'send,' and then immediately refreshes the page to see John's response. It's still early morning in London, though. John's probably asleep. Sherlock stays awake for the remainder of the morning anyway, refreshing the page every few minutes. Waiting.

* * *

By five A.M. there's still no response. Sherlock reluctantly shuts off his laptop and packs it away, hearing Anabelle's alarm go off down the hall. They rise together, but are rooms apart, and they listen to their mutual shuffling about, the sound of clothes rustling as they dress, without speaking.

Sherlock, physically and emotionally exhausted, snaps at Anabelle when she wishes him a good morning. She makes him breakfast, for which he doesn't thank her, and they catch a taxi to the JFK airport.

* * *

"Anabelle, this ticket is wrong," he says, his words tainted with his Norwegian accent. They're standing just inside the airport, having printed out their tickets for Germany.

"Hm? How so?"

"It says the plane departs at 6:30 . We're going to be late – " Sherlock stops himself. His eyes flash and he crumples his ticket in his hand. "Anabelle."

"Sigerson."

"Get. Me. My. Ticket."

"That is your ticket," she says, far too happily, as if she has no idea what he's talking about. She holds her own ticket – departing at 8:00 A.M., landing in Berlin – in her hand.

"This ticket," he waves his abused slip of paper, "is good for a six-thirty flight to _Heathrow."_

"Yes," she says. "It's only logical that we split up, for a little while. I'll take care of the Sasaki Code in Berlin, and you take care of things in London."

"We agreed we'd go after Gruner first!" Sherlock hisses through gritted teeth, angered by his need to use his accent, his need to sound so ridiculous, when he wants to be taken seriously.

"You don't have to go after Moran in London," Anabelle assures. "You just have to take care of things."

Sherlock scowls and takes out his mobile, expecting his brother to fix everything, to promptly get him a ticket for Berlin printed. But before Sherlock can send a text, Anabelle says, "Mycroft already knows. And he _approves."_

"You planned a trip behind my back with my _brother?"_ Sherlock asks, his voice low but scathing.

"It wasn't behind your back. I sent the texts on your phone," Anabelle says plainly. Sherlock clenches his fists.

"There's no reason for me to go to London," he says.

"But there's even less reason for you to stay here, and I assure you that – with your brother's help – you won't be getting a ticket to anywhere else," Anabelle says. "Our terminals are in completely different parts of the airport. We'll have to split up now."

"I could go to a different airport. I could take a bus or a train somewhere else," Sherlock threatens.

"But you wouldn't. Not when you want so badly to be in London," Anabelle says. She looks at him, scanning up and down, as if considering how to best say goodbye. He imagines she's going through all possibilities – an affectionate hug, a kiss on the cheek, a handshake. But she sees his fuming expression and only says, a little sadly, "Goodbye, Sigerson."

He snorts derisively and turns his back to her, wheeling his suitcase in the direction of the terminal. He doesn't look back.

* * *

He receives a text from her when he's on his plane.

**7:10 A.M.** _If I were you, and John were Luke, I'd be heading home, too._

He reads it twice, searching for some scrap of solace in it. He finds none. Because that's not true, is it? Anabelle would be going to Berlin no matter what her circumstance. She picks the rational choice, always. No matter how she feels. He'd thought he did that too. But the destination of his plane tells him otherwise.

It's unfair. He was distraught – dissociative – when he thought that he'd be separated from John after John's release. Now he's going to London and he feels equally distraught, but for different reasons.

No matter where he is on the map, Sherlock can only get so close to John. He can't announce himself, can't proclaim his undead-ness to John. He'll have to remain discreet, in the shadows, relying on John not to notice him (which he won't, because he never notices anything). And that's not much more satisfying that being half a world away from John.

Sherlock sighs. Not a second has passed since reading Anabelle's text and having his John-related thoughts. It's going to be a long ride.

He mentally wraps his emotional troubles up in a neat bundle and tucks them away, to take out once his plane lands. For the next seven hours, he ruminates on how to best outmaneuver Gruner.


	16. A God in London

"After walks [Sherlock] has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them." -Dr. Watson, _A Study in Scarlet_

* * *

He sort of stumbles off the plane, out of the Heathrow airport, and into one of Mycroft's cars. A woman with a Blackberry in her hands takes his bags, putting them on the floor of the backseat. She successfully pretends not to notice his spandex pants, or the fact that his collared shirt has too many unbuttoned buttons for its wearer to make any claim to heterosexuality.

"Where has Mycroft told you to take me?" Sherlock asks her. She never once lifts her eyes from her phone, but says promptly, "300 Madison Avenue, apartment 1D."

Sherlock pulls up, behind closed eyelids, his cognitive map of London, and puts a mental pin on the address. They're approximately thirty-seven miles away, with at least eight available routes, only three of which are worth considering. Well, two. A construction project on the edge of London was scheduled to start last week, which will currently be obstructing one of the routes. After taking traffic into consideration, it should be an hour and thirty-seven minute ride one way, or an hour and forty-one minute ride the other.

"Am I to stay there alone?" Sherlock asks. It's a flat, not a hotel. He knows it, as he knows all apartment buildings in London.

"I wasn't told," she says. Sherlock nods and looks out the window. As they enter the city, he makes rapid fire deductions about the passersby outside, in order to entertain himself.

Most would describe the late Sherlock Holmes as a crime specialist, and he would agree. But if they were looking for a title as all-encompassing as possible, then he would tell them that he is a _London specialist._ London is realer to him than any other place in the world. It is here that his mental collection of information is most relevant, giving the illusion that his mind works faster in London, or that his I.Q. is higher, his genius more profound. Here he can tell where a man has been from the shade of the soil on the sole of his shoe. Here he can not only tell you that a woman is a secretary, but where it is, precisely, that she works. He is a god in London.

He's dropped off in front of 300 Madison Ave, a red-bricked apartment building in a nicer neighborhood in the city. The woman with the Blackberry masterfully removes his luggage from the car while never dropping her phone, or leaving the vehicle herself.

"Bye, Sigerson," she says. It dawns on him that she has no idea who he actually is.

_"Farvel,"_ he says, in Sigerson's bright, flamboyant way, and the car takes off, leaving him behind. He takes a deep breath, inhaling all the sweet, polluted London air. _Home._ Then he turns around, looks at the apartment building, and walks toward it.

* * *

He knocks. It's obvious from the salmon paint on the door whose flat this is. When the flat's occupant takes a moment before shuffling to the door, as if unused to guests, it becomes doubly obvious.

The door creaks open. Molly stands before him.

Mycroft doesn't know the details of Sherlock's disguise. Therefore, it's impossible that he could have warned Molly about Sherlock's bald skull, blonde eyebrows, brown eyes, or homosexual veneer. He estimates that it will take a full minute, along with two or three hints, for her to realize whom she is speaking to.

"You!" she says immediately. She closes the door a bit, peeking out from behind it as if she'd like to hide. She's in striped pajamas.

"May I come in?" Sherlock asks, his accent thick.

Molly gives a slow, dumb nod, mouth agape. They stare at one another for several seconds.

"Today, Molly," he says sharply.

"Oh!" She jumps and looks at the door with mild surprise, as if she had forgotten it was there, or thought that Sherlock could simply walk through it. She opens it quickly, stepping aside, and he enters.

He scans the room, noticing everything from the pink throw pillows and the snoozing cat, to the fact that Molly's couch was bequeathed to her from a dear and dead aunt (heart failure).

"I'll be staying here for some time," he says, kicking the door shut and dropping his bags. "Mycroft can reimburse you for the extra groceries."

She says nothing, only keeps staring. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she finally seems to gain some degree of control over herself. She says, "I'm so happy to see you again! I didn't know…when I would. If I would."

She's looking at him strangely. He's not sure what about the look is strange. She's wringing her hands together, in the nervous state that is typical for her (why is she always so nervous?), but there's something more. A little sadness in her eyes, perhaps. But why…?

"My brother didn't tell you I was coming?" says Sherlock. Molly shakes her head.

Oh, Mycroft. He must have realized that there was no possibility of Molly turning Sherlock away, so he didn't waste his time with a phone call. Probably has a war, or some corrupt election, to deal with. Can't be bothered with infatuated pathologists.

"Well," says Sherlock, "if you could keep the cat away, I think this stay will go very well indeed."

"His name is Toby," she says reflexively. She's still gawking at him, like he's some type of apparition. He stares back, unsmiling. After a moment she says, "Would you like some…tea, maybe?"

"Please." He inclines his head. English tea in England. How he's longed for it.

* * *

Molly spills his tea all over his lap a few minutes later. Then, while apologizing profusely, she attempts to clean him up and presses a napkin very firmly over a rather private area, which immediately makes her jump back, blush unflatteringly, and apologize even more.

Several minutes after _that_, Molly makes a second batch of tea, and this time Sherlock makes sure to retrieve his own mug himself. He's aware of her watching him as he takes his first sip. He swallows and says, "Is something wrong?"

"No," she says, too quickly. "You – you just look so…different. And sound so different."

"You had no trouble recognizing me," he points out. "One might fear that my disguise is insufficient."

"It's not," she assures. "It's just that I'd always recognize _you."_ She looks away, taking a gulp of her too-hot tea, which makes her cough of a bit.

Those words are cryptic, by Molly's standards. Why would she always recognize _him?_ He's still mulling it over when she speaks up again, saying, "You're less intimidating as a gay man." She laughs falsely.

"I'm not gay," he says. "And neither is Sigerson."

"Sigerson?" she asks.

"Me," he says. "Well, _me."_ He pulls at the collar of his shirt, indicating his disguise.

"Ah," she says. "That's good. If you _were_ - not that there's anything wrong with it! – but John might be a little, you know, put off." She gives another small, false laugh. Her attempts at humor pain him.

"John doesn't know I'm here," he says, voice cold.

"Oh. He still thinks that you're…?"

"Yes," he says. "You're one of my only confidants." Then, looking carefully aloof, he says nonchalantly, "Have you spoken to him recently? John?"

She shakes her head. "I'm not sure I could. I mean, he was in jail for a little while, I'm not sure you know that – "

"I'd heard."

"Right. And ever since, I've just been avoiding it. I should see him, I guess. It would just be so strange, knowing what I know…"

"Of course," Sherlock agrees. Then he adds, "I never had time to thank you."

Molly looks at him with a face of disbelief. "For what?"

"That should be obvious," he says shortly. Then, mustering all of the patience he's fairly sure he doesn't possess, he says, "You helped me. And my friends. That warrants a thanks."

"Oh," she says in a small voice. "Yes. That does, doesn't it?"

"Thank you, Molly."

"You're welcome," she says, smiling. She drinks her tea. "So. What have you been up to? A mission, like in the movies? Or just – "

"It wouldn't be wise to discuss that," he says caustically.

"Oh." She blushes. "Of course not. Right."

"I've been traveling," he says, trying to sound polite, "but not alone. I've found a…" What is Anabelle, exactly? A client? A partner? An assistant? Is he _her_ assistant? (No, don't be ridiculous.) A…friend? "I've found a person with whom I have been traveling," he finally finishes. Best to stick to the objective. "I was just in New York."

"That's nice," says Molly. "I've always wanted to visit there. And I'm glad you haven't been lonely."

He raises his eyebrows

"You get lonely easily," she says, by way of explanation.

He looks at her, aware that his gaze would be piercing if it weren't for his brown contacts. As it is, she's able to maintain eye contact without becoming too flustered.

"What makes you say that?" he asks.

"Because I know you," she says. He looks away, drinking more tea, and she says, softly, "Bart's is lonely. Without you."

He clears his throat and stands. "Well, I'll be needing sleep. I'm very tired. Will you take the couch? Where's the bedroom?"

"Sleep?" she says. "At eight o'clock?"

"It's much later in New York," he says, condescending.

"It's five hours earlier in New York," she point outs. And then adds, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude. Maybe you're used to keeping weird hours, what with...work. Sorry."

He's looks at her, thoughtful. He doesn't ask why in the world she knows E.S.T., or ask how it was that she recognized him at the door. _You,_ she'd said, thinking fast, knowing better than to say his name aloud, although he very much doubts that Molly has ever had to keep a serious secret in her life. How is it that someone could be so painfully awkward, so tremendously ignorant, and yet have these rare insights?

"You're strange, Molly Hooper," he says, triggering a look of tentative offense on her. He adds, "And on second thought, I'll take the couch."

She pauses, but finally smiles. "Thank you," she answers, and leaves the room. It's pleasant, Sherlock thinks, to be around someone who can sense when he's trying very, very hard to be nice.

* * *

He receives the text in the morning.

**6:10 A.M. **_John and your landlady will be at your cemetery at 9 this morning. Would you like a car?_

Sherlock tries to shake himself from sleep. He's received twelve hours of it, but feels as if he could rest his head on the couch pillow and go for twelve more. Instead he swings his legs off the couch, flips open his phone, and types to his brother, _Yes._

* * *

** Notes:** I've never been to London, so I just made up Molly's address. I hope no one minds. Thank you, as always, for reading. Comments are very appreciated.


	17. The Dirt and the Ash

Sherlock has neglected to tell anyone, including the Professor and his past therapist, what it was that initially brought him to London. The truth is, he rarely thinks of it now. But it's impossible not to remember when he's standing in a cemetery, looking at a headstone that clearly reads 'Holmes.'

It is, in a way, aesthetically pleasing to know that what brought him out of London at thirty-four is the same thing that brought him into it at fourteen: Death. There's a symmetry to that, a certain neatness. He likes it.

His father's funeral had been held in London. It had been Sherlock's first time in the city. In those days, he left the Holmes' estate about as often as he now visits it; which is to say, very seldom indeed. He'd never been to a city in his own country before. He had not known that there _were_cities in England.

His father wasn't buried in this cemetery, but the differences between this one and his are minute. There is a such fine line between saying that the two cemeteries have the same_ kind_ of trees, swelling rosebushes and grey headstones, and saying that the two cemeteries have the _same_trees, swelling rosebushes and grey headstones, that distinguishing the difference between the two doesn't seem worth the effort. Therefore, this cemetery is, Sherlock decides, his father's cemetery.

His father's cemetery is tranquil. It's as pleasant as it can be, seeing as it holds the dead. Birds flutter and tweet atop tree branches; a cool breeze tickles the flowers left on the ground. Mycroft chose a suitable setting in which to not bury his brother's body. Sherlock hopes John and Mrs. Hudson appreciate it.

A taxi pulls up outside the cemetery, and the two most important people in the world get out of it. Mrs. Hudson leads John, pointing to where Sherlock's grave is; this is John's first time here, but not hers.

John. He looks…objectively healthy. He hasn't lost weight. He has circles beneath his eyes, but seeing that he's just spent three months in jail, this is hardly surprising. Overall, he is well. Whole. Safe.

Mrs. Hudson says something to John, and when he responds she gives his arm a gentle hug. She walks away soon, unsteadily, leaving John alone. John glances back, to make sure she's really leaving. Why? What does he need privacy for?

John opens his mouth, and begins to speak.

_No, John. Stop it, John, _Sherlock thinks.

_Don't do that. You're making a fool of yourself, talking to the dirt like that. There's nothing there, John. There's nothing there. I'm right here._

John needs to do this, though. The more John grieves, the deader Sherlock becomes, and the safer John becomes because of it.

During his father's funeral, Sherlock had stayed away from Mycroft and the other grievers, rather like he stays away from John now. Sherlock had watched Mummy from afar. She'd stood at the front of the mourners, by Pater's headstone. She had drifted, slowly, like a falling cherry blossom, to the ground. She had pressed her black gloved palms against the dirt like she could reach her husband better that way, and she stayed in that position for over an hour. Silent and tearless. The other grievers' tears had seemed superficial, while his mother's sadness seemed the saddest.

John's sadness is sad, just like Mummy's once was. He's still speaking. Sherlock wonders what he's saying, but deduces it before he even intends to.

He's thanking Sherlock. A sense of duty. A sense of owing Sherlock, even though Sherlock only took John's cane from him while John gave Sherlock back the world. He's asking for Sherlock to return somehow, because he isn't a particularly original man and that's what grievers often do. He'd been in denial, at first, and then angry. Sherlock knows, he's read all about the stages of grief. John's not angry now. Sherlock can tell.

And then John does something amazing.

It's not crying. Obviously he was going to do that. It's that he rubs his eyes, after just seconds of releasing tears, and he _stops_ his crying. By sheer force of will. With an unwavering sense of self-discipline, he collects himself, stands straight, and walks away.

John Hamish Watson, you impossible man.

Sherlock watches his friend walk all the way out the cemetery, his arms swinging with the measured movements of a military man, and by the time he reaches Mrs. Hudson and signals for a taxi, he looks almost well. Somber, but composed.

Sherlock wants to brush off what he's just seen and think about his next move. He wants to figure out how much longer he'll be staying in London, and whether or not he should join Anabelle in Berlin. He wants to demand funds from Mycroft, for Molly's groceries. He wants to know where Gruner and Moran are now. He wants to move forward, forward, endlessly forward.

Instead he just says, "John."

* * *

"They were, uh, all delivered. For you," Molly tells him, back at her flat. Boxes litter her living room, all unlabeled except for stamps marking them as property of the British government. "There was a woman, with a mobile. She said to go through them as soon as possible, starting with this one." She points to the only box on the couch.

"Alright," Sherlock says. He takes off his sneakers and leaves them by her door, a habit instilled in him by Anabelle. He opens the first box, saying, "Don't go through any of these."

"Of course not!" she says quickly. Then adds, "Tea?"

"That's the fourth time you've offered me tea in less than twenty-four hours, Molly," Sherlock says. "Why don't you offer me some coffee?"

"Right," says Molly, frowning, and she heads off to the kitchen. He hears her coffee maker gurgle a few moments later.

In the first box is a collection of vanilla folders. Sherlock goes through them quickly and thoroughly, finding information on both Adelbert Gruner and Sebastian Moran. He sees pictures – Gruner is black-haired, blue-eyed, and handsome. Moran is blonde-haired and brawny, with small, mean eyes and a square jaw that some women might find attractive. Gruner, at twenty-six, is younger than Moriarty, while Moran, thirty-eight, is older.

Sherlock remembers once, years ago, when he and John had been tracking down an international gang of Chinese smugglers. They'd had to spend hours going through the book collections of two men. John had needed breaks from the monotony, but Sherlock remained animated until his goal was accomplished. Sherlock is good at going through extensive amounts of information and committing them to memory.

Which is why it is concerning when he finds himself, after three boxes, dozing off. He drops the box to his feet, and not even the subsequent clatter is enough to rouse him, or stop his eyelids from flickering shut. His head falls back, and he is asleep.

He has a dream.

In the dream, he is many inches shorter and playing violin. It matters to him that he plays well, and for some reason he's chosen a particularly difficult piece. His fingers keep shaking, and there are tears in his eyes. He's been playing, alone, in this study, for weeks. He hasn't left except at night, to get some food from the kitchen, walking around the dark Holmes' estate like a pale little phantom – the new, soft ghost at the end of the hall.

"Sherlock?" The door opens and Sherlock abruptly stops playing. Mycroft stands behind him. Chubby Mycroft, home from university, his Christmas vacation extended just because his father's dead.

Sherlock feigns exasperation. With a _huff,_ he sets his violin down and faces the fireplace, his back to his brother. For a moment there's only the sound of the flames cackling.

"I brought you this," Mycroft says finally. It's not English he speaks. It's broken, pieced-together Latin, fragmented and ungrammatical. He's been studying Latin ever since father's funeral, when Sherlock made it clear he still has no interest in English.

Mycroft holds out an instrument. It's Pater's violin, the Stradivarius, gleaming and pristine. In laughably poor Latin, Mycroft says, "Maybe, instead of playing alone on your boy's violin, you'd like to use his? You can play me a song. I'd love to hear it."

Sherlock turns on his heels, snarling. The sight of Mycroft, double-chinned and gargling out all that appalling Latin, his nasty fat hands all over Pater's violin, is disgusting. Feeling violent, Sherlock snatches the violin from Mycroft's hands and throws it into the fireplace.

The flames flatten at first, beneath the Stradivarius, and the violin threatens to extinguish the fire. But then the fire overwhelms it, and it begins to burn.

"Sherlock, really. There's no need to have these – these –" Mycroft sighs, gives up on his limited Latin, and finishes in English, " – tantrums all of the time. You're too old for them – "

"That wasn't a tantrum," Sherlock lies, making his voice cold and unfeeling. "That was _logic."_

"Logic?" Mycroft inquires.

"There's only one violinist in the house now," Sherlock explains, "so I scarcely see any reason to own _two_ violins."

Mycroft repeats the Latin words in his head to make sense of them and, once he does, he sighs and says, "As you wish." He shuts the door softly behind him. Sherlock rushes to the closed door and presses his ear against it, listening to Mycroft's footsteps as he makes his way down the hall. Once the sound has faded, and Sherlock estimates Mycroft is a safe distance away, Sherlock dashes out of the room, down the hall, and to the kitchen. He fills a pot with tap water and races back to the study, the water sloshing over the pot's brim and onto the rugs. He splashes the entire pot onto the fireplace, and the flames die with an angry hiss. Sherlock inspects the damage.

The Stradivarius has diminished to a clump of ashes and burnt strings. Sherlock steps back, closes the study door, and falls to his knees before the fireplace. He begins to sob, collecting the wet ashes in his hands.

"Pater, Pater…" he keeps repeating, holding the ashes of the injured violin to his heart, getting soot all over his white collared shirt. He whispers to it, tells it to come back, tells it how much he hates Mycroft, how it must hate Mycroft, too.

"Don't go because of Mycroft," he sobs. "Please, please, don't go. Not because of him. Not because of – "

Sherlock's phone buzzes. He opens his eyes.

He sees Mycroft's number and is reminded of his dream. He hasn't thought about that particular memory in a long time. Inexplicably, a burst of rage bubbles up in his chest, similar to the rage he felt twenty years ago. He clicks 'talk' and says into the phone, "You know I prefer to text."

Mycroft insists on greeting him politely, which is somehow equally rude. "Hello, brother. Is the information I gave you useful?"

"You should have sent it weeks ago." Sherlock scowls.

"Don't be impractical," Mycroft says. "Obviously those boxes aren't allowed to leave the country. It was enough of a task to get them to Ms. Hooper's."

"As if you couldn't have managed it," Sherlock sneers. Then, not giving Mycroft time to respond, he says, "Do you know where my Stradivarius is?"

"It's in your flat, along with all of your other possessions," Mycroft says. "I'm paying rent for 221B at the moment; I've told your landlady to keep everything precisely as it is. I thought you might like that. She likes it, too; seems to think I've turned sentimental."

Sherlock snorts. "Unlikely." Then he realizes something. "You're paying the rent? What about John?"

"He was in jail, don't you recall?"

"Obviously. But what about now? Are you still paying?"

"Ah. John has…relocated. I believe he's living with Mike Stamford until better accommodations can be found."

"Can't you pay for his _better accommodations?"_ Sherlock asks, but he's mostly just making conversation. The only thing going through his mind is, _221B is empty, 221B is empty._

"I would, of course, dear brother," says the git. "It pains me not to. John, however, is currently under the impression that it's _my_ fault my little sweet brother is dead, and you can imagine how angry he is with me."

"It _was_ your plan for me to kill myself, as I recall," Sherlock says.

"Ah, but let us not accredit me too fully. It was you who employed the help of Ms. Hooper, wasn't it?" Mycroft asks. "And how is she, by the way? Still as pointlessly in love as ever?"

"No," Sherlock lies, not sure why he's doing so. "She's over her feelings for me, entirely. And how's the diet going, since I've been gone? Still as pointlessly in love with cake as ever?"

"Always so petty, aren't you? One would think you'd be able to get over your resentments by now, especially after all of this." He hears Mycroft sigh on the other end. "Well, I must be going. Can't keep the German ambassador waiting for too long…"

Both of them hang up, neither saying goodbye. Molly, annoyingly, put a thin afghan over Sherlock while he slept. It falls to the floor as he rises. After closing the last box he'd been searching through, Sherlock puts on his shoes and leaves the flat without saying goodbye.

He walks briskly, aware enough of his surroundings to walk in the right direction, but not so aware that he thinks to get a cab. After twenty minutes of walking, his phone buzzes.

It's Mycroft. He ignores it.

His phone does not stop buzzing, alternating between unread texts and unanswered calls, even as he approaches his destination. The front door, as Sherlock suspected, is unlocked, although it's unlikely anyone is home. It's only 2 o'clock. John probably took Mrs. Hudson out to lunch, they're probably eating sandwiches right now. And 221B is empty, empty, empty.

His phone buzzes one last time. He turns it off, and enters the foyer.

He breathes in the smell of cleaning products, Mrs. Hudson's warm perfume, and blueberry pie. He takes in the wallpaper, the dim lighting, the creak of the seventh stair. He ascends the steps and enters his flat – their flat, John and Mrs. Hudson and his. His purple sneakers press into the carpet and he looks around at the dark room. The lights are out and the curtains are drawn, but he can smell the neatness, see the shapes of stacked cardboard boxes on the kitchen table. Mrs. Hudson's been cleaning, moving anything that seems liable to grow fungi. Must be therapeutic for her.

Sherlock goes to his familiar, black leather armchair, knowing where it is only by memory, unable to see much. He sighs into the darkness. He ought to get up and smell John's pillow upstairs, or something, before he leaves. It's been months since he's smelled something of John's. Maybe he can leave with a few of his much-needed reference books, if he thinks no one will notice that they're missing. But ultimately he just wants to be here, to exist for a little longer in this room.

"I knew you'd come here."

Sherlock sits up. There's a man. Sitting in John's chair. It's not John.

He knows who it is. Casually, he crosses his legs and stretches over, to turn on the reading lamp beside him. The room becomes illuminated, revealing both of the chairs' occupants, and Sherlock rests his hands in his lap.

The man grins.

"Hello, Moran," Sherlock says.


	18. Cat and Tiger

Some people, Sebastian thinks, have it all. Some people are born possessing enormous intellect. Their intelligence bedazzles everyone around them, drawing people toward them, giving them undeserved charisma. At least Jim, for all his brains, had been lonely his entire life. He'd never had a friend, no matter how well he dressed or spoke to his dinner guests. And he suffered in the looks department, too; he was always a short, shapeless, scruffy sort of thing, sadly reminiscent of a reptile, and that helped to soothe Sebastian's jealousy.

But to be born with brains, have friends, and high cheekbones to boot - it's too much. And then, in addition to this extensive supply of gifts, to come back from the dead, entirely unscratched and only slightly more Norwegian. And _then!_ - yes, there's more! - to meet the enemy that's been waiting, in the dark, for your arrival, and to be wearing the only disguise in the world that could possibly save your life. As much as Sebastian wants to crush those clever, posh bones in his hands, he also knows that there's only one genius in the world who has ever donned that particular disguise, and that genius isn't Sherlock Holmes. It's Luke Madder. Which makes things very interesting indeed.

Of course, Sebastian hadn't been waiting for the detective _nécessairement._ While he wouldn't put it past a genius to fake his own death – Sebastian would still be waiting around for his boss, if he hadn't held Jim's dead body in his own hands – he's mostly been expecting the doctor. Basically, he'd planned to strangle whichever man came, and then leave the corpse in a broken heap on the carpet.

Sebastian leans forward and offers his hand.

"When I heard you coming up the stairs," he says, "I thought you were Ms. Madder. Wishful thinking, eh? Then, when I saw a man's silhouette, I thought, _'Bloody hell, it's the detective's ghost.'"_ He laughs. "But you must be Mr. Bøler, right? I've heard all about you. Don't worry – none of it good." He laughs again, and the detective laughs right back.

"Yes, I am," he says, shaking Sebastian's offered hand. "It's nice to meet you."

You'd think, for such a clever man, the detective would realize that Sebastian has no trouble seeing past disguises. Sebastian doesn't know the details of what his 'assignments' – as Jim always called them – look like. He can't remember the detective's eye color, or hair style. Sebastian has trained himself to recognize people from yards away, by their physique alone. He's been pointing a rifle at this detective for two years, and he'll be damned if he can't remember the man's measurements. Even in the dark flat, there had been no mistaking the detective's long torso, narrow waist, and thin stature. No wardrobe change can cover that up.

_"Enchanté,"_ says Sebastian. His French comes out when he's around clever people; it's a reflex, he can't help it. It's the only thing he's got, really, when he's unarmed. "So let me guess - Ms. Madder sent you here?"

The detective lies with a nod.

_So lazy, Holmes, letting me make your cover story for you,_ Sebastian thinks. But he smiles stupidly, like he's eating this right up. "I knew she'd want to see the flat - or send someone else to, if she was too busy to come herself. Ms. Madder has always been so obsessed with the detective..." Sebastian glances around 221B. "I don't see his appeal, personally. Do you?"

He has to stop from laughing himself silly when Holmes is forced to look around his own home and say of himself, "No. Seems like a completely unappealing person."

"Say,_ is_ Ms. Madder coming?" Sebastian asks, truly curious.

"No, she's very busy," the detective says in his silly fake accent. "She just wanted me to get some of the detective's books for her. And some things from upstairs."

_Like hell she did,_ Sebastian thinks.

"Upstairs?" Sebastian feigns confusion. "Isn't that where the doctor's bedroom is? I thought the detective was the one she liked. The smart one."

"How do you know where John's bedroom is?" Holmes asks, too sharply. Then, realizing his mistake (while Sebastian pretends to be too dumb to notice), he says, "Maybe Ms. Madder meant the downstairs bedroom."

Sebastian knows about the doctor's room because he's been waiting here for days. The old housekeeper keeps coming up here in the evenings, to clean and cry, and Sebastian sneaks upstairs for an hour or so. He's put all his guns beneath the bed, where he found several medical textbooks.

"Oh," he says. "Well, you go wherever you want."

* * *

One thing is immediately obvious to Sherlock: There's no possibility of assaulting Moran and winning. It's simply not a match. Moran is nearly twice as wide as him, and all of his mass is hard, unadulterated muscle. It seems fitting, somehow, that the obstacle keeping Sherlock from coming home would be so very large. Moran will have to die eventually, of course. But even if Sherlock could somehow use his wits to outsmart the idiot into killing himself (and Sherlock can think of seven possible ways to do that now), he wouldn't. Because Moran could very well have something Anabelle wants. As talkative as Moran is, it should be no trouble to get him to tell Mr. Bøler where he's keeping Luke Madder.

When Moran grants him permission to search about his own flat, Sherlock gets up and begins collecting some of the books he's most missed during his travels. He doesn't risk going into John's bedroom to smell his pillowcase; that would seem suspicious, since Moran thinks Anabelle sent Mr. Bøler to look at the detective's things. As curious as he is, Sherlock knows better than to ask for how long Anabelle has been interested in Sherlock, or why. That's information he'll seek elsewhere. For now, it's best to pretend he knows far more than he does.

Once Sherlock has picked out several books, dust-free due to Mrs. Hudson, Moran says, "You done now?"

"I am," says Sherlock.

"Good. This place gives me the creeps. Say, I think there's a sandwich place downstairs. You wanna grab a bite?" Moran asks.

Moran has known Sigerson Bøler for less than ten minutes, and he's already asking him out to dinner. It's hardly surprising that Moriarty never let his enemies meet his sniper. Keep the idiot far, far away – he might embarrass Moriarty. And, Sherlock thinks, it must be telling that Moran chose to sit in _John's_ chair, while Moriarty had sat in his. Because Sherlock has never met anyone further from being a genius.

"Sure," says Sherlock, and Moran stands. Sherlock takes an involuntary step back.

Holy Christ, Moran is _huge._ Sherlock hadn't gotten the full impression when he'd been sitting in the chair, but Moran is at least half a foot taller than Sherlock. He's clad entirely in black, in a well-padded vest, and Sherlock estimates that there are at least five knives hidden on him, and likely a gun.

Moran chuckles, having seen him step back, and Sherlock quickly jumps into character. He looks Moran up and down very suggestively (no gay man would be able to ignore such a physique, right?), and says, "A sandwich place? That sounds good. Because I am _very_ hungry." Sherlock bites his bottom lip and lets his eyes flicker to Moran again.

* * *

Sebastian doesn't know whether or not to be insulted. Doesn't this cocky git remember that Sebastian intimately knew another genius, who also had a penchant for playing gay? Holmes wouldn't dare use the same tricks if Sebastian were Moriarty – he'd get far more creative.

He decides that he's insulted. He's so insulted, in fact, that he thinks he might return to his original plan and rip the detective's throat out, right here and now.

_Madder, Madder, think of Madder,_ he reminds himself, and he calms down.

"Oh, look at you." He laughs amiably. "You're a piece of work, aren't you? Come on."

The sniper grabs the detective's hand and leads him out the door.

* * *

Moran orders four sandwiches. Sherlock orders one.

_Four_ sandwiches. He's like a troll. A very stupid, hungry monster.

"So," Moran says, mouth full, giving Sherlock a very charming view of the half-chewed contents in his mouth, "you're probably wondering what brought me into the detective's flat."

Sherlock laughs. "I thought it'd be rude to ask."

"Oh, no," says Moran. "I'll tell you. You see, the truth is, I wanted to talk to Ms. Madder."

"Really? Why's that?"

Moran takes a moment as he shoves half of an entire meat sandwich into his mouth. Then he says, "I need to tell her that I'm not going to hurt her."

_Kidnapping her brother has hurt her a lot, as it turns out,_ Sherlock thinks. He says, noncommittally, "That's nice of you."

"Do you know where she is?" Moran's tone is too nonchalant to signify anything other than absolute interest.

"I don't," Sherlock says, "but she'll be meeting me here in London, soon enough."

Sherlock looks at Moran the same way he did in the flat, like he's Sigerson Bøler appreciating some masculine aesthetics. He says, softly, "If you stay with me, you can see her too."

* * *

The detective is looking at Sebastian far too intensely. Sebastian, who is possibly the most heterosexual man in the world, feels not even slightly aroused by this. It is, however, very amusing to watch the detective play gay, so he sees no reason to tell him to stop.

"That sounds great," he says cheerily. "Where are you meeting her?"

The detective is probably staying in the doctor's new flat in London, or maybe in his D.I. friend's house, but obviously the detective can't tell Sebastian that. Sigerson Bøler wouldn't know any of Holmes's friends. So Sebastian says for Holmes's benefit, "Would you like to stay at my flat? Ms. Madder knows where it is."

"Wow," says the detective, laughing flamboyantly, "that sounds great! I'll save so much money on hotels. Thanks."

When the detective finishes speaking, he unconsciously rubs his jaw, like all the saccharine cheeriness is rotting his mouth. Sebastian pretends not to notice.

"It's nothing," Sebastian says. _This way I get to keep you nice and close._

* * *

The sniper suspects nothing. It's almost disappointing, how easy this is turning out to be. What sort of villain invites his foe to his lair? At this rate, finding out Luke Madder's whereabouts should be no trouble.

"This is amazing. I mean, like, you and I are practically friends already," Sherlock says, the peppiness bringing him great physical pain. "Can I call you Bashy?"

Moran smiles. "Of course you can, Siger!"

Both men laugh.

* * *

Sebastian has shot three people before for daring to call him 'Bashy.' One of whom was his mother.

He vows to give the detective a nice, painful death at the end of all of this. For now he simply says, "Mr. Siger, I'm so glad I've met you."


End file.
